In this discussion, I will be putting the presenters' ideas and findings together with my own. I will first summarize the most interesting points of each paper and then respond to them from my experience as coordinator of the group therapy program at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. Two issues that need further clarification are the definition of junior-junior and junior-senior pairings, and the factors that contribute to coleader satisfaction. The latter leads to aspects of the cotherapy relationship that most intrigue me: those that have to do with systems interaction and the emotional experience of the cotherapist. SUMMARIESRice writes about how positively his students received cotherapy in a training program. It is interesting to note that the sequential method of coleadership was not as popular, since the stability of the group was affected. Even though his coleaders are a year apart in their training, he refers to them as juniorjunior pairs. There is synchronicity between positive coleadership experience, similar theoretical orientation, and positive supervision.Dublin effectively illustrates how there is no such thing as a junior-senior pair, since so many factors have to be considered in assessing power and status between two people. His example of the trained group leader and the untrained Russian immigrant group leader brings to life his thesis. We also learn at the end of the paper how successful this team was, despite the fact that they were put together for practical purposes and had little in common except their concern for the patients. He mentions that in agency settings, people with different theoretical orientations do and must work together, and they do so effectively. This postulation challenges Paulson et al.'s (1976) and Solomon et al.'s (1953) assumption that similarity of orientation is one of the main ingredients of a successful therapeutic team.The complexity of the senior-senior pair is portrayed by Concannon. She mentions that some group therapy mentors do not approve of cotherapy, but I would agree with her that it is here to stay. Because senior coleaders are experienced and choose to work together, they can handle the ramifications of the cotherapy relationship in the group. We get a glimpse into the "stickiness" of such a relationship, as well as the rewards. She describes the connection between the emotional leader of the group and the cotherapy team. Thinking about the team as a strong subgroup that can exclude the group members is
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