Core Principles of Group Psychotherapy: An Integrated Theory, Research and Practice Training Manual

T his version of Core Principles of Group Therapy (2020) is an update of an original manual by Robert Weber called Principles of Group Psychotherapy (2006), itself an update of an earlier manual developed by the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) for its training and certification program. The current editors are Drs. Francis J. Kaklauskas and Les R. Greene and they are also its primary authors. The book inherits the blueprint of these earlier manuals and their regulatory motives, but development into a large text must have been a Herculean labor. Although the editors still use the word “manual” in the subtitle, this is a textbook which required expansion of what was once skeletal material into a well-articulated frame. The “core” in the title is now all-encompassing. Of its 12 chapters, almost all list one of the editors as a co-author, too. The double editor– author role may risk narrowness or idiosyncrasy, but it results in chapters with congruent perspective and tone, something not always true of edited texts with chapters by different authors. They and the other chapter co-authors—Sally Barlow, Susan Gantt, Reginald Nettles, Elizabeth Olson, and Scott Rutan—are to be congratulated on a successful performance.