Commentary on Stone: The Fallout in My Groups From Having Written a Book About My Experiences as a Patient–Trainee

Abstract

163 1 Director of Training, Long Island Institute of Mental Health, Rego Park, New York. Correspondence should be addressed to Robert S. Pepper, PhD, CGP, 110-50 71st Road, #1E, Forest Hills, NY 11375. E-mail: DrRobertSPepper@aol.com. Heisenberg (1927), in his work with quantum mechanics, noticed that measuring the direction of a subatomic particle changed its speed, and measuring its speed changed its direction. From these observations, he derived his famous theory of indeterminacy, which states with deceptive simplicity, “To observe something is to change it.” Perhaps a similar thing could be said of my experience leading treatment groups in the wake of the publication of my new book on boundaries in analytic group psychotherapy. Writing about it has changed it. And, as with so many things in life, the results have been decidedly mixed. When I wrote the manuscript, my daughter expressed concern that I was revealing too much about myself. She felt protective of me. In my many years of practicing and writing about group therapy, I have been scrupulous about keeping personal disclosure to a minimum, but in this age of Google and Internet access, I have come to the conclusion that motivated patients can readily find out plenty about me anyway, so I decided to be more open about myself and my experiences as a patient–therapist at a group training institute. If it weren’t for my editor, who called my memoir-like material “window dressing,” I would have revealed even more. But, at the same time, I was torn between wanting to tell it all and protecting my groups, and myself, from too much exposure of my neurotic side. Part of my motivation for writing the book was to set the record straight with critics of earlier writings who had accused me of taking a “holier than thou” attitude toward the complications of dual relationships in the training of group therapists. I took it personally when one reviewer of an article that I submitted for publication in a prestigious group journal rejected it, using an ad hominem argument to