title: A developmental approach to gifts in long-term group psychotherapy extending from an anniversary ritual.
abstract: Therapists have been quietly receiving gifts from patients for many years, but only recently have they been acknowledging and reporting such transactions. Most of the literature on the subject, which has been sparse, has been limited to the individual psychotherapy setting. In this article, we take up the issue within the group psychotherapeutic setting, surveying the literature, and describing our own experience with what became a gift-giving ritual in our long-term open-ended therapy group. We offer a group developmental perspective for informing therapeutic responses to gifts, and suggestions for the technical management of this kind of transaction.
authors.affiliation: Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA. ahzsmolar@verizon.net
authors.forename: Andrew I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Smolar
authors.forename: Ann E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Eichen
mesh_terms: D000846:Anniversaries and Special Events; D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D005260:Female; D037921:Gift Giving; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors