President's Message

Welcome to the Society of Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy's website. Div. 49 is committed to the understanding of groups in all their forms. Our membership cuts across counseling, clinical, social, organizational, health and sport psychology. Our members share the belief that it is vital to understand the features that these groups share, and the features that they uniquely hold, and that the best way to achieve this understanding is through interaction with groups researchers in many different areas of psychology. If you are interested in groups and your curiosity extends to many different kinds of groups, we are the home for you. We are especially proud of the depth and breadth with which our student and early career members are involved in the division. We are also small enough that our annual meeting provides ample opportunity for conversation. You won’t feel lost or faceless.

We intend this site to be a one-stop shop for everything you need associated with teaching, research and practice on groups. You can read our newsletter The Group Psychologist, stay abreast of the latest articles in our journal Group Dynamics: Theory Research and Practice, get information on our conference program and access a variety of tools to help you with your teaching, research, practice and job searches. Our Facebook and Google+ pages provide regular updates on topics of interest to members.

My goal for my presidential year is to continue to strengthen the ties between our division and others that also contain members who are interested in groups. We will have the chance for some of the strengthening at our 2016 meeting, which will feature talks from researchers across a number of domains, and we have a number of other exciting opportunities in various stages of development.

Groups, and group-related phenomena, are receiving more attention from more sources than ever before. This is an exciting time to be thinking about how collectives impact humans and society in ways that isolated individuals cannot, or can only rarely. I invite you to become a member of Div. 49 so that we can learn about your interests and discuss ways in which we can work together to further our knowledge and practice of group phenomena.

Craig Parks, PhD, president
Society of Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy