Samuel Slavson

Samuel Richard Slavson (born December 25, 1890 in Poltava , † August 5, 1981 in New York ) was an American engineer , journalist and teacher who began in 1919 to deal with analytical group therapy . He is considered "one of the pioneers of group psychotherapy , to whose recognition as a scientific discipline he made a major contribution". Slavson wrote over twenty books and served as the founding president of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA). He founded the children's group therapy and developed a specific small group model .

life and work

Slavson came to New York with his family in 1903 or 1904. At an early age he was involved in self-culture clubs for children and young people. In addition to studying civil engineering, he developed youth development programs because he was convinced of the innate creative potential in every person. He was close to the ideas of progressive education , Freud's theses and the Child Guidance movement. The latter also included the Jewish Board of Guardians in New York, a care center for girls and boys with developmental problems, where he held a leading position from 1934 to 1956.

In 1934 Slavson was able to demonstrate the effectiveness of group work on emotional disorders, and in 1943 he published An introduction to group therapy , the first fundamental work on group psychotherapy with children and adolescents. This work was widely recognized and was e.g. B. ranked among the ten classics of psychotherapy by the Menninger Foundation . He was a founding member and first president of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA), which worked hard to gain recognition from psychiatrists. The 12 direct successors of the non-medical Slavson were all psychiatrists. In addition, Slavson, who, even after the end of his presidency in the AGPA in 1944, exercised substantial influence in the association until the late 1950s, strictly ensured that this institution remained classical Freudian, orthodox and in a clear defensive position against neo-Freudians, existentialists and transactional analysts. Slavson has served as the teacher, supervisor, and de facto editor of the International Journal of Group Psychotherapy , both nationally and internationally. His decades of controversy and competition with the equally authoritarian Jacob L. Moreno , the founder of psychodrama, were legendary .

Group therapy for children

Slavson is considered to be the founder of this form of therapy. He saw the game as a therapeutic tool and used modeling clay, puppet theater or building blocks. The children should develop their social skills and strengthen their sense of community. A child can change his behavior in the group of his / her peers and broaden his or her horizons: An otherwise calm child becomes more open and cheeky, but an otherwise cheeky child can then act shy and reserved. A child's problem situation is often similar to that of other children, and the more often the more homogeneous the group is. The group can create a sense of togetherness and strengthen the sense of identity. In terms of developmental psychology, this is particularly important for children between 6 and 7 years of age.

Small group model

After working with children and adolescents for decades, Slavson expanded his field of work to include adults in the late 1940s. His small group model is designed for a maximum of 8 participants and is based on homogeneous groups, homogeneous in terms of age, gender and symptoms. Slavson developed several disorder-specific models with exact descriptions for clinical use. Differences were Counseling ( counseling ), guidance ( guidance or instructions ) and psychotherapy . Particularly well-known were his parent groups - oriented towards the child's welfare - and the Vita-Erg therapy with psychotic women.

In 1964 Slavson presented the summary of his theory development and practical experience, in Volume A textbook in analytic group psychotherapy . He combined Freud's drive theory with sociological definitions of the milieu and recognized the human search for relationship and acceptance as a primary need . He saw the group as self therapy within the framework of a collective we-superego , which opens the way out of self -centeredness and psychological isolation. It is generally regarded as his great merit, on the one hand, to have developed the group analysis true to the principles of the psychoanalytic founding generation and, on the other hand, to have tailored it to the needs of American psychiatry.

position

"Slavson established the recognition of group psychotherapy as a scientific discipline, made fundamental theoretical contributions to this and created a professional organization in the United States that for the first time established binding guidelines for qualified training."

- Stumm / Pritz et al .: Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy , Vienna, New York 2005, 446f

Awards

• 1969 American Academy of Psychotherapists Award
• 1972 title Father of group psychotherapy (one of the 100 most important minds in the world of health)

German-language publications

• Introduction to group therapy. Publishing house for medical psychology, Göttingen 1956
• Introduction to group therapy for children and adolescents. Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1972, 2nd, unchanged. Post
• Group psychotherapy with children. A work book (with Mortimer Schiffer). Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1976
• Analytical group therapy. Theory and practical application. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1977

Literature on Slavson

• A. Klein: He lets them grow. Survey 85 (1949): 75-80
• Hyman Spotnitz: In tribute to SRSlavson. Intern 'Journal of Group Psychotherapy 21 (1971): 402-405
• Scheidlinger / Schamess: Fifty years of AGPA 1942–1992: An overview . Intern 'Journal of Group Psychotherapy 42 (1992): 1-22
• Elke Mühlleitner: Biographical Lexicon of Psychoanalysis , Tübingen 1992
• Dieter and Christina Schmelzer: Slavson, Samuel Richard , in: Stumm / Pritz et al .: Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy , Vienna, New York 2005, 445ff

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stumm / Pritz et al .: Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy , Vienna, New York 2005, 445
2. ↑ diverging sources - 1903: Stumm / Pritz, 445 - 1904: Slavson: Analytische Gruppeentherapie, Ffm 1977, text on the back of the cover.
3. ↑ Scheidlinger / Schamess, 2
4. ^ Family Health , 4, 3, 1972

Web links

• Literature by and about Samuel Slavson in the catalog of the German National Library
• American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA)
• Guide to the SR Slavson Papers