Abstract
In the AHPP year 2000 handbook thirty-five of the 143 full and affiliate members listed lay claim to a groupwork qualification. Wondering what proportion of these members are currently running ongoing groups open to the public, I rang them up to find out. I spoke to three quarters of the thirty five members and only five were running such groups. I trust and hope more humanistic practitioners are doing it without saying so. But if that is the case why not bother to say so? To make a specific point here and for the purpose of this article from here on I am specifically not counting groupwork that is conducted under the auspices of practitioner training, where trainees are perforce gathered together in a group or groups, but interestingly are mostly only being taught counselling or psychotherapy as one-to-one practice. In such a context groupwork can readily be viewed as a necessary evil. My contention here, on the contrary, is that it is a necessary good.