Socio-cultural influence on group therapy leadership style

The main author of this article had the opportunity to witness, to observe and to be trained in two different styles of group therapy leadership over the past few years: A more directive, prescriptive and active style that was developed in Egypt and is considered as the traditional Egyptian style of conducting dynamic therapy groups (Egyptian Integrative Dynamic Model) and a less directive, more descriptive and passive style that was developed in the UK and is considered as the traditional style of leading dynamic therapy groups within the British National Health Service (British Group Analysis). The article tries to investigate the socio-cultural factors that favoured adopting the more directive, prescriptive and active format in the Egyptian model although it revolves around the same object-relations theoretical core as the British one. This might stimulate an interesting discussion on the relativity of psychotherapy concepts, processes and aims among different cultures. © 2008 The Group-Analytic Society (London).