The title The Use of Small Groups in Training should be taken quite literally as descriptive of the book's material. The methods which the authors report are those of the many new schools which seek individual and institutional change through the use of the dynamics of the group. Gosling, Miller, Turquet, and Woodhouse do not view the group with a training task merely as a measure of economy, one teacher to many students, nor as a depository for the knowledge gained by the sharing of ideas and techniques. Rather, it is a teaching instrument and an important vehicle in the learning process, using the relationships and interactions for educating.
This principle appears to be behind the widening acceptance of these methods in the training of workers in the helping professions. It takes into account that the worker-client relationship is crucial, above and beyond techniques, and that it may be viewed