690 A M ER ICAN JOU RNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY
ON ENCOU NTER G RO U PS a complex psychological phenomenon. The
Carl R. Rogen
New York: Harper & Row. 1 970. 1 72 pp. $5.95
i paper, $ 1 .9 5 )
I remember some years ago Abe Maslow
returning from a summer spent discovering
how laboratory training methods ( most
particularly, the T-group) were being used
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
as part of an organizational process in an
electronics firm. He was very excited about
the process, which he termed "intimacy
training." It was something of a shock­
as well as a revelation-to have this field
of applied behavorial science in which I
had become deeply engaged described i n
such terms. For it seemed to me then, as
it does today, that T-groups and laboratory
training methods are ways of introducing
individuals not only to themselves and to
other individuals, but also to the group­
level phenomena, the organizational forces
and the community dynamics in which
they are inescapably involved. Intimacy,
I believed then, was almost a by-product
of such training. If T-groups helped in­
dividuals encounter one another with great
openness and authenticity, if they enabled
them to appreciate their own and one an­
other's humanity, all well and good. But
the real name of the game, as I viewed it,
was group dynamics, including the power­
ful unconscious forces that swirled around
issues of authority and dependency, the
patterns of interaction that inevitably de­
veloped around task and maintenance
functions, the universal dilemmas of
power, control and decision-making.
I was not then tuned in to the deepest
longings of thousands of people within
today's society, including, as it happens.
many of the participants in the scores of
T-groups that I served as trainer. As Carl
Rogers eloquently describes in this volume,
the encounter group movement provides
one of the most successful ways "for deal­
ing with the feeling of unreality, of im­
personality, and of distance and separa­
tion that exists in so many people in our
culture."
Rogers once again has written a de­
ceptively simple account for the layman of
very simplicity of this brief volume is at
the heart of the current controversy within
mental health circles about the small-group
movement. It is by now a commonplace to
hear of sensitivity training, nude mara­
thons or other forms of encounter groups
being conducted by poorly trained ama­
teurs--converted clergymen, liberated col­
lege students and alumni of week-end
"turn ons" at Esalen or one of the hun­
dreds of growth centers that have sprung
up throughout the continent. Most of them
will find inspiration and guidance in this
volume. Many psychotherapists are curi­
ous about this sudden search for intimacy;
some are concerned about the potential
harm that group plunges, conducted by
amateurs, may inflict on vulnerable
psyches; a few believe that the frantic
search for instant intimacy represents a
deplorable, irresponsible escape from gen­
uine self-confrontation.
Now along comes Carl Rogers with a
fascinating, useful, down-to-earth state­
ment of what encounter groups means to
him. He promises no miracle cures, makes
modest claims for his own skills as a group
facilitator, simply describes his own as­
sumptions and approaches-yet makes
clear that he believes he is discussing one
of the most important social inventions of
our time.
There is a somewhat pretentious quality
of unpretentiousness that makes its way
into the encounter group, or personal
growth movement as it is often called.
Many readers of this journal have un­
doubtedly received announcements of en­
counter group programs from the myriad
growth centers, with descriptions of staff
including statements like: "I used to be
a psychologist who devoted his time to
psychological testing and individual psy­
chotherapy. Now my wife and I are ex­
ploring what it means to be fully engaged
in encountering ourselves and other people
in a truly human way." The implication
for the prospective customer is that the
group leader has cut his way through de­
humanizing layers of professionalism to
discover his own humanity-and if he can
do it, so can any participant who will use
the leaders as the role model.
 REVI EWS OF THE LITERAT U R E
T o the uninitiated, Rogers's discussion of
encounter groups also may seem to say that,
in the final analysis, it is his essential hu­
manism that turns the trick. But simplicity
is deceptive. It is akin to the proverbial
sculptor who, when asked how one makes
a statue, replied that he chips away what
he does not want until what is left resem­
bles the product he had in mind.
Rogers's somewhat off-hand discussion
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of technical issues unfortunately masks
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many of the complexities and controversies
in the encounter group movement. Primar­
ily he is content to describe what he finds
works for him, fits his personal style, and
appears to facilitate the personal growth
of participants. For example, he reports
that he rarely comments on group process
because it makes group members self-con­
scious and gives them the feeling they are
under scrutiny. He does not bother to com­
pare or contrast his style with those group
facilitators who rarely do anything else
but comment on group process and would
consider it bad technique to comment on
the participation of an individual within
the group.
There is little consensual validation
among practitioners in the field today.
Discussing origins of the current group
movement, Rogers also lists some brief,
and admittedly oversimplified, definitions.
Encounter group is defined as an approach
that "tends to emphasize personal growth
and the development and improvement of
interpersonal communication and relation­
ships through an experiential process".
The problem is that almost all contempor­
ary approaches to group experience em­
phasize personal growth; all include some
concentration on communication and re­
lationships; and all of the so-called training
approaches make use of the experiential
process, or as some of the NTL literature
puts it these days, "experience-based learn­
ing."
One of the consequences of the basically
a-conceptual and sometimes anti-intellec­
tual quality of the personal growth move­
ment is that many individuals without
demontrated professional credentials rush
in to become practitioners of an art that
promises to renew not only individuals
but also institutions and even, as Rogers
69 1
only half-humorously suggests, interna­
tional affairs. Rogers's presentation of his
art will probably give further encourage­
ment to such benevolent redeemers. How­
ever, its virtue is that it can only help
such eager amateurs work more wisely and
with greater effectiveness. For, despite all
the hazards i nherent in its simplicity and
its failure to grapple with complex concep­
tual and methodological problems, it does
not vulgarize. Rogers On Encounter
Groups ( as he i ndeed did in his well
known work On Becoming A Person) has
managed to make a personal statement
that encompasses the essence of a field in
a way that can only benefit reader, mental
health professional and layman alike.
A most useful chapter provides a de­
scription of what goes on as people in a
group work through the several stages of
their attempts to deal with the anxieties
and opportunities engendered by an at­
mosphere of freedom encouraged by the
facilitator. In a subsequent section Rogers
makes no bones about the fact that the
role of group facilitator is not for every­
one, however well-intentioned. He would
not encourage, for example, the person
"who appears to be exploiting the present
interest in groups . . . who pushes a
group, manipulates it, makes rules for it,
tries to direct i t towards his own unspoken
goals . . . who judges the success or failure
of a group by its dramatics . . . who be­
lieves in some one single line of approach
as the only essential element in the group
process . . . who frequently gives inter­
pretations of motives or causes of behavior
in members of the group . . . who withholds
himself from personal emotional partici­
pation in the group . . . or whose own
problems are so great and pressing that
he needs to center the group on himself."
Rogers is convinced from his experi­
ences that encounter groups "can set in
motion profound changes within the in­
dividual person and his behavior; in a
variety of human relationships; and in the
policies and structure of an organization."
He points out that change in individuals
does not always lead to better organiza­
tions and that, indeed, it may sometimes
create profound turbulence and sharp di­
visions within established institutions. He
 692 A M E R ICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCH IATRY
finds, as have many organizational devel­
opment consultants who have experi­
mented with training approaches as in­
terventions for organizational change, that
isolated encounter groups alone rarely are
sufficient to enable individuals to accom­
plish significant changes of organizational
patterns.
Rogers should find many responsive read­
ers among today's mental health workers,
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
many of whom are beginning to question
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
whether their therapeutic detachment fa­
cilitates or hinders them in their work with
patients, and to wonder whether the tradi­
tional patient-therapist relationship itself
should be redefined, if not eliminated al­
together. They recognize that therapists,
too, are creatures of a technologic culture
in which man has become increasingly de­
personalized. Psychotherapy can become
a mask behind which both patient and
therapist avoid genuine encounter. Simi­
larly, as Rogers has the grace to point out,
the encounter group game can be played
in such a way as to inhibit individuality.
One more negative potential growing out of
encounter groups has become evident in re­
cent years. Some individuals who have parti­
cipated in previous encounter groups may ex­
ert a stultifying influence on new workshops
they attend. They sometimes exhibit what I
think of as the "old pro" phenomenon. They
feel they have learned the "rules of the game,"
and subtly or openly try to impose these rules
on newcomers. . .
To me this is a perversion of the true group
processes. We need to ask ourselves how this
travesty on spontaneity comes about. ( p . 4 2 )
I asked two people who are familiar
with encounter groups to read this book
and tell me how it affected them person­
ally. One, a wife and mother who has
herself been a participant in two personal
growth oriented train i ng programs, com­
mented: The book made me feel good,
"
I know that. Among other things, I appre­
ciated his description of how the person
undergoing change experiences pain and
how that pain is a continuing part of the
experience. On the personal side, some of
the pleasure of my reading was being in
touch with Carl Rogers, the person. He
came through in a very natural way."
The other, a young behavioral scientist
who sometimes serves as a group facili­
tator, wrote : "It left me feeling strength­
ened in my ability to lead groups. Rogers'
deeply personal sharing was nourishing in
some of the ways that the human sharing
of the groups he describes are nourish­
ing . . . I was relieved to learn that he,
too, sometimes faces some of the same
doubts and uncertainties and frustrations
in groups he leads that I do in the groups
I am beginning to lead. And I am finding
it easier to trust my feelings in groups af­
ter Rogers humbly conveyed in many ways
that it is simply his human feelings that
serve as his highest authority when facing
these difficulties. I appreciate the highly
personal style of the book and was
strengthened by its power-so much
greater than that of the mythical 'manual
for encounter group leaders' I've searched
for since first getting involved in this busi­
ness."
If you read the book, you too may dis­
cover yourself in touch with a person
struggling to realize himself more fully as
he seeks to help others rediscover the po­
tentials of their own humanity. There is
much in both the book and its author that
will support and enlighten.
Donald C. Klein, Ph.D.
NTL Commun ity Research
and A ction Laboratory
Columbia, Md.
D REAMS, I MAGES A N D FANTASY:
A Semantic Differenti a l
C . Scott Moss
Urbana, I l l.: University of I l l inois Press. 1 970. 302
pp. $8.50
" BLACK ROVER, COM E OVER!":
The Hypnosymbolic Treatment of a
Phobia
C. Scott Moss and Pauline James
Urbana, I l l . : University of I llinois Press. 1 970. 1 40
pp. $3.95
Unlike some of the multiple personalities
he describes, C. Scott Moss does not find i t
difficult t o maintain two roles simultan-