From the author: I recently made a short presentation in which I very schematically outlined the main points of I. Yalom’s approach to group therapy. You can’t post presentation files here, so I had to get a little clever and make a mixture of an article and a presentation. Addressed to students and aspiring leaders of therapeutic groups. There is a lot of material, so it will be in several parts. Group therapy is not yet very popular in our country, despite the fact that this type of therapy is ideal for our conditions: it costs much less than individual therapy and quickly leads to visible results. Given the eternal Russian shortage of time and money, this is an ideal combination. But - another paradox - although clients are in no hurry to go to group therapy, the variety of groups represented on the market of psychological services is impressive. Psychological support groups, gestalt groups, psychoanalytic groups, art therapy groups, dynamic groups, anonymous addicts groups, psychodrama groups, existential groups, etc. and so on. All this diversity can be reduced to three main areas, which differ from each other in what the focus of attention is on: Personality-oriented groups. Groups focused on group process. Groups focused on interpersonal interaction or interactional groups. Yalom, although positioning himself as an existential psychotherapist, he leads groups in an interpersonal approach that is closer to behaviorism than to existentialism. Actually, this direction will be discussed in the article. So, Irvin Yalom himself does not need any special introduction. As money-hungry trainers write in their presentations, Yalom is a group therapy guru. We have published two of his books on working with groups: “Group psychotherapy. Theory and Practice" and "Inpatient Group Psychotherapy". You need to read it in that order. The first book is more general, providing a basis. The second is much more specific, but with frequent references to the first. In general, reading Yalom is one thing, but looking at his work with the group is another. The emphasis in the work is placed a little differently. It’s definitely better to see once than to read a hundred times. And it’s quite good - both. Yalom draws on neo-Freudian Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal theory of psychopathology. It is based on three principles borrowed from biology: the principle of social existence, functional activity and organization. Briefly, Sullivan’s provisions that are directly related to group therapy are shown in the picture: Considerations of evolutionary psychology are no less important. From my own experience I can say that sometimes the life-changing moment is the very fact of acceptance of a participant by the group (or, if psychoevolutionary, by the tribe). Conversely, the most severe negative emotions for a participant arise not as a result of unpleasant awareness or conflict, but in the event of rejection by the group. The group is really very powerful and touches the instincts. Based on these theories, the main task of group therapy can be formulated as follows: to return a person to humanity. That is, to help him adapt to society in such a way as to be accepted by this society and feel as comfortable as possible. Accordingly, the goals of group therapy are as follows: If we expand a little, then: working in a group helps a person understand what he is doing wrong in relationships; allows you to find other, more useful and socially acceptable models of behavior; and, finally, it helps to smooth out or change those character traits that interfere with building healthy relationships with others. So, in the interpersonal approach, the main task is to help a person establish relationships with other people. Accordingly, it is best to solve problems here that are somehow related to relationships. For example: How these goals are achieved and problems are solved - read in the second part.