The Boston Change Process Study Group (BCPSG) was created in 1995.  It consists of a small group of practicing analysts, developmentalists, and analytic theorists, who share the view that knowledge from the burgeoning field of recent developmental studies as well as dynamic systems theory can be used to understand and model change processes in psychodynamic therapeutic interaction. The group brings together through its members the knowledge of infancy researchers and the experience of practicing psychoanalysts in an effort to study the process of change as it occurs both in normal development and in psychoanalytic therapies.

There is now a broad consensus that psychoanalytic developmental theories are in need of drastic revision based on these same studies.  Several authors (eg. Lichtenberg, Stechler, Emde) have begun to do this work.

The BCPSG, however, believes that looking at change processes as observed in infancy studies also sheds light on how change occurrs in treatment.  With this in mind, the group has set out to explore in depth how knowledge of developmental process could creatively inform psychoanalytic therapies and understanding of change in treatment. The fruits of these efforts, publications collected here, presentations, and symposia, both in the United States and in Europe, are now reaching a wider audience.  The group has published several seminal papers as a group, as well as numerous papers and books individually.

Change in Psychotherapy–A Unifying Paradigm

The Boston Change Processes new book is now available from W. W. Norton & Company

"This book is a must-read for psychodynamic clinicians, both beginning and advanced. In a field where little is truly novel, the Boston Change Process Study Group has been breaking new ground for the last fifteen years, creating a new paradigm for therapeutic action. This clearly written and compelling new volume is a chronicle of that journey. These authors assert that the therapeutic relationship itself, even in the absence of interpretation, is a sufficient condition for therapeutic change. Whether or not one is in agreement with this position, it is a point of view in contemporary psychoanalytic discourse that must be read, understood, and considered." - Glen O. Gabbard, MD, Brown Foundation Chair of Psychoanalysis and Professor of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine

"The Boston Change Process Study Group has risen to the daunting task of encompassing a psychoanalysis that recognizes the contributions of clinical theory, unconscious motivations and conflict, relational interactions, developmental observations, caretaker—infant research, and adult treatment.....[T]hey have offered a theory of development and treatment that can inform every clinician in the conduct of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis." –Frank M. Lachmann, PhD, Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York