Philip J. Flores, Jeffrey Roth, Barney Straus: Psychoterapia grupowa w uzależnieniach. Teoria i praktyka. 4 wydanie, New York, NY: Routledge; 2023, str. 282

The book on group psychotherapy in addiction treatment by Philip J. Flores, Jeffrey Roth and Barney Straus was published by Routledge on June 2023. The first edition appeared in 1988, the third in 2007, and it took 15 years to produce the present considerably updated and most interesting fourth edition of the monograph.
In their introduction, the authors identify group psychotherapy, supplemented by other interventions, as the best addiction treatment method since it provides support groups with an opportunity to engage in mutual help, enabling group members to exchange feedback. Moreover, the therapeutic group creates conditions that support coping with the recovery-threatening “inevitable reconstructions” of experienced trauma.
Both in the first and in the present edition, addiction is assumed to be an attachment disorder, linking group psychotherapy with the recovery process as described in the 12 Steps programme. However, over the years numerous new publications have appeared including the most recent book by Irvin Yalom & Molyn Leszcz of 2020 that show how group psychotherapy can be more effective [1].
The monograph is consists of two parts. In the first theoretical premises are outlined, while the second part provides practical cues on the conduct of a psychotherapeutic group as an addiction-recovery process tool.
In the six chapters devoted to theoretical assumptions, addiction is described as an attachment disorder. Addiction to psychoactive-substance use is not only a psychological problem, but also one with biological, emotional and spiritual consequences. This dysfunctional attachment should therefore be transformed into a more stable and safer one. According to a further premise discussed in chapter 2, addiction is a family disease, since it affects the quality of attachment between all the family members and may generate a variety of other disorders like anxiety or depression. The family, our basic social unit also determines our attachment styles to other people. When addiction is construed as a family disease, it is possible to avoid the perception that the addicted person is a scapegoat and the family as a site of dysfunction. This enables family members to go beyond blaming the addicted person for the family dysfunction and beyond correcting their mistakes. Moreover, it provides everybody with opportunities to work on their own development, and thus to recover from addiction. The importance of the individual seeking...


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