ISBN:
0-87630-984-8

Jay Earley, Ph.D., is a psychologist and psychological and social theorist with doctorates in both computer science and psychology. He has been in practice fo 25 years. As Director of the Group Therapy Center of Long Island, he trained group therapists for many years and has a reputation as a master group leader. He has previously written two books and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area.

The book has three-hundred and thirty-seven pages, including appendexes. It is divided into five units. The first of these deals with Earley's understanding of the change process, the second lays solid groundwork suggesting how to create therapeutic norms for the group's culture, the third suggests how to facilitate process, and the last two deal with various issues, first in a general fashion and then dealing with more specific issues, such as "Gender and Diversity."

Jay Earley claims to be a master group leader, and this book substantiates that claim. He has carefully outlined each chapter and filled them with relentless advice, practical suggestions, and concrete examples. For instance, chapter seven, "How to Structure a Group," has seven major headings and fifty-five sub-headings - all within eighteen pages. Under "Group Format" Earley talks about location, size of the group, length of meetings, frequency of meetings, length of stay in group. Under "Indications for Group Therapy" he distinguishes among three perspectives: when group is preferred (speaking of interpersonal issues, interpersonal stimulation, need for feedback, safety, transference and countertransference, and transition from individual), when group can be valuable, or when group is not indicated (speaking about attendance problems, drops outs, and individual therapy failures). He shares wisdom on group composition. He provides group leaders with guidelines for screening potential group members, and he tells how to prepare a person for participation in group.

Aside from these benefits, Jay Earley often provides incisive and careful thinking, which reflects upon his extensive psychotherapeutic and group experience. When he summarizes and draws distinctions among various terms used in his text, he is at his best:

You may have noticed some similarity and overlap among the terms access, self-exploration, awareness, insight, and self-direction. Let me clarify the meanings of each of these concepts relative to each other. Self-exploration and access refer to almost the same process, looked at from different points of view. Self-exploration is a group norm valuing a certain process that involves especially awareness and insight. Awareness is both a skill that clients develop (how to know what one is experiencing in the moment) and the result of using that skill (knowing that particular experience). Insight also refers to a client skill (how to achieve intellectual understanding of psychological processes) and the result of using that skill (what one learns about oneself). Access refers to the degree or depth that one achieves in doing self-exploration, both cognitively and emotionally, and how this relates to the therapeutic change process. Self-direction involves using previously gained insight to take responsibility for directing one's own therapy process. (p. 117)

I define defense according to the person's internal psychodynamics and resistance according to the person's response to therapy. A defense is any behavior or internal process that attempts to avoid experiencing or activating a core issue. Resistance is any behavior that doesn't cooperate with the therapy process or the therapist. What's important about this distinction is that resistance can be for reasons other than defense. (p. 151)

Earley's book is about doing process or therapy groups and is not for those interested in conducting skill building or psychoeducational groups. As such, it is not everyone who will either have the interest or the freedom to practice in accord with what he writes. However, for those who move in his direction, Jay Earley has provided a handy resource, something to check one's self against just to make sure all the bases have been covered.

Thus, Interactive Group Therapy is a book worth having, but there are two down sides. First, it is written in such a way as to almost promote introjection. Earley's practical advice, his statements about how to do things, while pertinent, frequently seem like a "paint-by-numbers" set. It is an odd sensation to be reading something that is so relevant and insightful only to feel as if one is being told exactly what to do and when. The second down side is strictly for strict-minded Gestaltists, the purists who will say that this is not a book about Gestalt group therapy at all. Indeed, when Jay Earley talks about transference, interventions, and interpretations, he seems far afield from the phenomenological method so distinctive of the Gestalt approach. This is unfortunate, since Jay Earley is an accomplished Gestalt therapist, and a careful reading reveals that he weaves Gestalt therapy in and out among the fabric of psychodyamic ideas in a delicate and almost imperceptable fashion. Consequently, while this might be a good book for beginning group therapists, it is not a book for beginning Gestalt therapists, because it would confuse them.

All that aside, Jay Earley's writing is to be commended for another reason. It shows a person working at actively integrating Gestalt psychotherapy into a contemporary and eclectic practice. His work in New York and in California is significant; however, as with any integrative work, one needs to understand in which direction the assimilation is running and to draw a distinction between an eclectic practice and an eclectic approach to therapy. It is not clear in this book that Early's theoretical integration is running in the direction of Gestalt therapy. Rather, it appears that psychodynamic tenets provide greater organizing value and that such Gestalt principles as awareness and contact are in their service. It is also possible, of course, that Earley has created his own, eclectic therapy. Regardless, Interactive Group Therapy is a unique and helpful contribution to literature about groups and how they work. For Gestalt therapists, it provides a read that will stretch them to practice assimilation that runs more distinctively toward the tenets of Gestalt therapy, but it is a book that is very Gestalt friendly, extremely practical, and a useful resource for those developing as leaders of therapy groups.