Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society

Deadline: Call for 50th Anniversary GROUP Journal Cover Art
2026-05-15
Call for Cover Art: Celebrating 50 Years of GROUP Journal
Deadline for Submissions May 2026
As we approach the 50th Anniversary of GROUP: The Journal of the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society in 2027, we invite artists, clinicians, and community members to submit original artwork for our new cover design. The selected artwork will serve as a visual symbol for our milestone year, appearing on future issues of GROUP, including the 2027 anniversary issue.
Themes & Inspiration
Since 1977, GROUP has been the scholarly voice of the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society (EGPS), dedicated to advancing group psychotherapy. We seek an image that captures the essence of group and EGPS values, including:

Connection, Transformation, and Hope
Multiplicity and Diversity in voices, identities, and cultural contexts.
The interplay between Individuality and Community.
Movement, process, and the bridging of past, present, and future scholarship.

All visual interpretations—abstract, representational, digital, or mixed media—are welcome.
Submission Guidelines

Requirement

Detail

Format

Original visual artwork (painting, illustration, photography, digital design).

File Type

High-resolution digital file (minimum 300 dpi; .jpg or .png preferred).

Orientation

Portrait orientation, adaptable to a standard journal cover (approx. 8.5” x 11”).

Artist Statement

Short statement (150–250 words) explaining how your piece reflects the spirit of GROUP and EGPS values.

Eligibility

Open to all EGPS members, readers, contributors, and interested artists.
The Artist warrants that the submitted Artwork is original, is the sole work of the Artist, and does not contain any libelous or unlawful statements.
The Artist grants to EGPS and the Group Journal an exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to publish, reproduce, distribute, and display the Artwork in all formats, including print and electronic, as part of the Group Journal and in all derivative works, reproductions, or subsequent editions of the Journal, and as part of the EGPS website and promotional materials. The Artist will be credited and retains copyright of the Artwork.

Submit To

Niki Keating at nkeating@colgate.edu by May 15, 2026.

Selection and Recognition
A review panel of GROUP editors and 50th Anniversary working group members will select the winning artwork. The featured artist will receive credit for the use of their art on the issue cover and a brief artist feature in the front matter of the journal and in EGPS communications. Consistent with copyright agreements of the journal, EGPS reserves the right to use the image in future publications and marketing materials.
We invite your creative expression to honor the legacy of the past fifty years and envision the next.
Warmly,
GROUP 50th Anniversary Working Group
Niki Keating, PhD, CGP, Chair

EGPS Spring Event: Talking about Sex in Groups
2026-05-15 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, 33 W 60th Street, New York, NY, 10023, United States
Join us for a panel discussion and event:
Friday, May 15, 2026
7:00 – 9:00 PM
33 W 60th Street
New York, NY
(Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy)
Talking about Sex in Groups
Judith White, LCSW, CGP, CST
Juliane Maxwald, MA, LP, CST
Ed Elder, MDiv, LMHC, LMFT
Sexuality and group process are shaped by similar factors: pleasure, risk, safety, difference and repair. Yet when it comes to talking about sex in groups, these dynamics are often avoided, muted, or mishandled. The more comfort group therapists have with their sexual selves, the more comfort we will have with inviting and listening to sexual stories of group members.
What happens when we begin to work with sexuality directly?
This year’s EGPS Spring Event will include both experiential and didactic elements, allowing participants to encounter and reflect on the emotional and relational responses that emerge when sexual themes are brought into a group context, including discomfort, excitement, resistance, curiosity, and silence. We will explore how cultural factors, especially those of ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion, affect our sexuality. We will discuss how these factors have shaped our sexuality as group therapists and how this affects our clinical work.
Judith White, LCSW, CGP, CST, Juliane Maxwald, MA, LP, CST and Ed Elder, MDiv, LMHC, LMFT will explore how erotic charge and group vitality are organized along the same psychological axis: aliveness requires risk, risk requires safety, and safety deepens through repair. The panel will offer clinical frameworks and practical considerations to help group therapists engage sexual material with greater confidence, sensitivity, and depth.
Join us for an event that will help deepen your work with groups by offering a nuanced, relational approach to engaging sexuality as a vital dimension of the therapeutic field.

WG4RE May Discussion Group: Unpacking Some of the Impact of Historical and Racial Trauma on Indigenous and African American Populations
2026-05-19 20:30 - 21:45 | Zoom
Work Group for Racial Equity May Discussion Group: Unpacking Some of the Impact of Historical and Racial Trauma on Indigenous and African American Populations
We’ll build on our prior discussion of Sinners by taking a deeper look at how historical trauma has shaped the lived experiences of two foundational U.S. populations—Indigenous and African American communities. In this session, we’ll examine how historical and racial trauma can produce intergenerational impacts, including effects on health, identity, relationships, community well-being, and trust in institutions, including mental health systems. We’ll also see how trauma and oppression can echo across time.
Hosts: Chris Dolin and April Harvin
Resources
Articles

The historical trauma response among natives and its relationship with substance abuse: a Lakota illustration – PubMed
Intersection of Racism and PTSD: Assessment, Treatment of Racial Stress and Trauma

Video

Healing from Historical Trauma: Understanding Trauma Part 2

No fee to attend. All are welcome.

Annual Membership Meeting
2026-05-28 20:00 - 21:30 | Zoom
For all EGPS Members:
Please join us for our 2026 Annual Membership Meeting.
Thursday, May 28, 8:00-9:30pm on Zoom
Not yet a member? Join us!

Deadline: Workshop Proposals for the Annual Conference
2026-05-31
Groups have long been understood as circles—spaces of gathering, reflection, desire, and shared meaning-making. Yet circles are rarely calm or stable for long. At times, they hold heat: conflict, urgency, fear, and the intensity of difference. In the current moment, many groups find themselves organized around these very forces, as polarization, mistrust, and social fracture permeate clinical, organizational, and public life.
What does it mean to lead when the circle is on fire?
This conference explores the challenges of leadership in groups charged with anxiety, division, and moral tension. Leaders today are called not only to facilitate dialogue, but to withstand and work within powerful affective currents. These dynamics often contribute to harm and defensive processes such as splitting, scapegoating, withdrawal, and the hardening of positions that foreclose curiosity and mutual recognition.
At the same time, difference—of identity, experience, power, and perspective—remains both a source of vitality and a site of profound strain within groups. How do leaders engage difference without either collapsing it into false consensus or amplifying it into irreparable rupture? How can conflict be worked with rather than extinguished or inflamed? What capacities are required to remain present, thoughtful, and ethically grounded when the group itself feels volatile or combustible?
We invite workshop proposals that take up these questions across psychotherapy, organizational, and community settings. Submissions might explore: leadership under conditions of fear and uncertainty; the management of conflict and aggression in groups; the role of identity, power, and historical trauma in shaping oppressive group dynamics; the leader’s use of self in high-intensity settings; and practices that support resilience, repair, and the possibility of dialogue across difference. We are interested in proposals that promote leadership practices that are affirming and inclusive of diverse identities, and that attend to the social unconscious as it permeates and shapes group life.
We particularly encourage proposals that integrate theory with lived and clinical experience, and that engage participants in experiential, reflective, or process-oriented learning. As groups become increasingly charged spaces, this conference seeks to illuminate how leaders can embrace the fire but not be consumed by it—and instead learn to work with it in ways that sustain connection, complexity, and growth.
We invite proposals to align with our organizational Mission and Vision.

Deadline: Training Program Applications Due
2026-08-01

Save the Date: Annual Conference Plenary (Virtual)
2026-11-12 18:30 - 21:30 | Zoom
Join us for the 2026 Annual Conference, Fire in the Circle: Leading through Fear, Desire, Turbulence, and Division.
Registration will open by early fall.

Save the Date: Annual Conference (Live Online Day)
2026-11-13 08:30 - 18:45 | Zoom

Save the Date: Annual Conference (In Person)
2026-11-14 08:15 - 19:30 | The Riverside Church, 91 Claremont Avenue, New York City, NY, 10027, United States
