Experiential Psychotherapy

In the late 1940s, a pioneering group of young psychiatrists at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, forged an innovative approach to psychotherapy based on a radical fidelity to the lived experience of both patient and therapist and a groundbreaking reconceptualization of the role of the therapist in the therapeutic relationship. They pioneered the use of multiple therapists—working together with groups, couples, families, and even individual patients. These collaborations were sometimes planned and ongoing, but other times they emerged spontaneously, with a therapist knocking on a colleague’s door to ask him to join a session. They met weekly to write about their innovative work, writing collaboratively and assigning authorship arbitrarily after an article was completed. They required all first- and second-year medical students to participate in ...