Group: Six People in Search of a Life [Paperback]

"It's painful to listen to yourself, at least in the beginning, but the alternative is endless suffering", says Dr. Lathon (a pseudonym, as are all the names in the book), the therapist of this group. This book is not a self-help text, says author Paul Solotaroff, but a "work of narrative journalism" perceptively documenting five highly successful, tremendously self-destructive people living through a year of the powerhouse theatre of group therapy. With much intense emotional ditch-digging, Lathon teaches the group his vocabulary (pain is not to be confused with suffering) and helps them become acquainted with the texts of their wounds and wishes.

Solotaroff, who was once a participant in an earlier group with Lathon, is an accomplished writer who vividly brings his subjects to life. Their troubles run the gamut of dysfunction, encompassing every flavour of anaesthesia--sex, food, drugs, TV, alcohol, shopping, overwork and destructive relationships. Raw and surprisingly candid, these are real individuals fighting some of life's harshest battles; not everyone survives emotionally to tell the tale. The wealth of surprises and final twist at the book's conclusion will keep readers riveted up to the last page. Whether group therapy is ultimately an effective treatment or symptom of the pathologising of navel-gazing, Group is a powerful narrative of our time. --Fiona Buckland

"It's painful to listen to yourself, at least in the beginning, but the alternative is endless suffering", says Dr. Lathon (a pseudonym, as are all the names in the book), the therapist of this group. This book is not a self-help text, says author Paul Solotaroff, but a "work of narrative journalism" perceptively documenting five highly-successful, tremendously self-destructive people living through a year of the powerhouse theatre of group therapy. With much intense emotional ditch-digging, Lathon teaches the group his vocabulary (pain is not to be confused with suffering) and helps them become acquainted with the texts of their wounds and wishes.

Solotaroff, who was once a participant in an earlier group with Lathon, is an accomplished writer who vividly brings his subjects to life. Their troubles run the gamut of dysfunction, encompassing every flavour of anaesthesia--sex, food, drugs, TV, alcohol, shopping, overwork and destructive relationships. Raw and surprisingly candid, these are real individuals fighting some of life's harshest battles; not everyone survives emotionally to tell the tale. The wealth of surprises and final twist at the book's conclusion will keep readers riveted up to the last page. Whether group therapy is ultimately an effective treatment or symptom of the pathologising of navel-gazing, Group is a powerful narrative of our time.--Fiona Buckland --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.