The Modern Contest: A Systemic Guide to the Pattern That Connects Individual Psychotherapy, Family Therapy, Group Work, Teaching, Organizational Life

A systemic guide to the pattern that connects individual psychotherapy, family therapy, group work, teaching, organizational life and large-scale social problems. The authors take their pioneering work from a series of papers on the dynamics of groups (schism, in particular, as the central phenomenon) to a general theory of being prepared for group struggle. The book divides into matters that can be done slowly at a distance and in advance, to matters that are sudden and decisive, and then back to taking stock at a distance.

Dr. Gustafson (A.B., Harvard, 1963; M.D., Harvard, 1967) is Professor of Psychiatry and Chief of the Brief Psychotherapy Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, and author of seven previous books, including "The Complex Secret of Brief Psychotherapy" (Norton, 1986; reprinted in paperback, 1997, Aronson), "The Modern Contest" (with Lowell Cooper, Norton, 1990), "Self Delight in a Harsh World" (Norton, 1992), "Brief Versus Long Psychotherapy" (Aronson, 1995), "The Dilemmas of Brief Psychotherapy" (Plenum, 1995), "The New Interpretation of Dreams" (James P. Gustafson, Publisher, 1997), and "The Common Dynamics of Psychiatry" (James P. Gustafson, Publisher, 1999).