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jenwoodrum 's review for:
Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
by Christie Tate
I have very mixed feelings about this book. As a therapist, I was so excited when I got it because I love any book that normalizes therapy, especially groups!
But there were some messages from this book that really concerned me.
I use a lot of DBT in my work, which is all about finding the balance between opposites or extremes (dialectics) in our lives. This is a very important perspective for people dealing with relationship issues, trauma, and mood disorders, etc.
Yet Dr. Rosen and the group embraced a very all-or-nothing approach regarding confidentiality - as in there is none. You should share EVERYTHING with the group, and everything can be shared outside of group with anyone. NOTHING is held back because ALL secrets are toxic.
For instance, when Christie's boyfriend didn't want something shared with the group and Christie told them so, they disapproved and pressured her for weeks saying, "That's toxic!"
While secrets CAN be toxic at times (again, embracing the middle path), this is a nuanced topic. Healthy relationships involve developing trust, creating boundaries, and respecting limits and privacy in appropriate ways.
Unfortunately the lesson of the book wasn't that the uninhibited openness (read: oversharing?) of the group was too extreme - Christie learned that this openness was "necessary"... to the extent that even though her 9-year-old daughter is now asking for her own personal information to be taken off the internet, Christie is refusing because openness is part of her process. Which in my opinion is not okay.
I also disliked how the group seemed to worship Dr. Rosen and expected him to "fix them" by attending several of his expensive sessions each week. When Christie would scold him saying, "You were supposed to fix me," he didn't correct her by explaining the actual role of a therapist in a group. He'd tell her to keep at it.
Ugh. I'm grateful that the people in the group seemed to benefit from one another. And as someone who has led groups, I know how powerful the space can be for healing relationships. But so much about this group did not sit right with me.
But there were some messages from this book that really concerned me.
I use a lot of DBT in my work, which is all about finding the balance between opposites or extremes (dialectics) in our lives. This is a very important perspective for people dealing with relationship issues, trauma, and mood disorders, etc.
Yet Dr. Rosen and the group embraced a very all-or-nothing approach regarding confidentiality - as in there is none. You should share EVERYTHING with the group, and everything can be shared outside of group with anyone. NOTHING is held back because ALL secrets are toxic.
For instance, when Christie's boyfriend didn't want something shared with the group and Christie told them so, they disapproved and pressured her for weeks saying, "That's toxic!"
While secrets CAN be toxic at times (again, embracing the middle path), this is a nuanced topic. Healthy relationships involve developing trust, creating boundaries, and respecting limits and privacy in appropriate ways.
Unfortunately the lesson of the book wasn't that the uninhibited openness (read: oversharing?) of the group was too extreme - Christie learned that this openness was "necessary"... to the extent that even though her 9-year-old daughter is now asking for her own personal information to be taken off the internet, Christie is refusing because openness is part of her process. Which in my opinion is not okay.
I also disliked how the group seemed to worship Dr. Rosen and expected him to "fix them" by attending several of his expensive sessions each week. When Christie would scold him saying, "You were supposed to fix me," he didn't correct her by explaining the actual role of a therapist in a group. He'd tell her to keep at it.
Ugh. I'm grateful that the people in the group seemed to benefit from one another. And as someone who has led groups, I know how powerful the space can be for healing relationships. But so much about this group did not sit right with me.