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effectiveness.
    But if the here-and-now focus (that is, a focus on what is happening in this room in the immediate present) is to be therapeutic, it must have two components: the group members must experience one another with as much spontaneity and honesty as possible, and they must also reflect back on that experience. This reflecting back, this self-reflective loop, is crucial if an emotional experience is to be transformed into a therapeutic one. As we shall see in the discussion of the therapist’s tasks in chapter 5, most groups have little difficulty in entering the emotional stream of the here-and-now; but generally it is the therapist’s job to keep directing the group toward the self-reflective aspect of that process.
    The mistaken assumption that a strong emotional experience is in itself a sufficient force for change is seductive as well as venerable. Modern psychotherapy was conceived in that very error: the first description of dynamic psychotherapy (Freud and Breuer’s 1895 Studies on Hysteria ) 40 described a method of cathartic treatment based on the conviction that hysteria is caused by a traumatic event to which the individual has never fully responded emotionally. Since illness was supposed to be caused by strangulated affect, treatment was directed toward giving a voice to the stillborn emotion. It was not long before Freud recognized the error: emotional expression, though necessary, is not a sufficient condition for change. Freud’s discarded ideas have refused to die and have been the seed for a continuous fringe of therapeutic ideologies. The Viennese fin-de-siècle cathartic treatment still lives today in the approaches of primal scream, bioenergetics, and the many group leaders who place an exaggerated emphasis on emotional catharsis.
    My colleagues and I conducted an intensive investigation of the process and outcome of many of the encounter techniques popular in the 1970s (see chapter 16), and our findings provide much support for the dual emotional-intellectual components of the psychotherapeutic process. 41
    We explored, in a number of ways, the relationship between each member’s experience in the group and his or her outcome. For example, we asked the members after the conclusion of the group to reflect on those aspects of the group experience they deemed most pertinent to their change. We also asked them during the course of the group, at the end of each meeting, to describe which event at that meeting had the most personal significance. When we correlated the type of event with outcome, we obtained surprising results that disconfirmed many of the contemporary stereotypes about the prime ingredients of the successful encounter group experience. Although emotional experiences (expression and experiencing of strong affect, self-disclosure, giving and receiving feedback) were considered extremely important, they did not distinguish successful from unsuccessful group members. In other words, the members who were unchanged or even had a destructive experience were as likely as successful members to value highly the emotional incidents of the group.
    What types of experiences did differentiate the successful from the unsuccessful members? There was clear evidence that a cognitive component was essential; some type of cognitive map was needed, some intellectual system that framed the experience and made sense of the emotions evoked in the group. (See chapter 16 for a full discussion of this result.) That these findings occurred in groups led by leaders who did not attach much importance to the intellectual component speaks strongly for its being part of the foundation, not the facade, of the change process. 42

    THE GROUP AS SOCIAL MICROCOSM
    A freely interactive group, with few structural restrictions, will, in time, develop into a social microcosm of the participant members. Given enough time, group members will begin to be themselves: they will interact with the group members as they interact