Samuel Richard Slavson (December 25, 1890 - August 5, 1981) was an American engineer, journalist and teacher, who began to engage in group analysis in 1919.
While studying to become a civil engineer, he developed youth support programs, because he believed there was inherent creative potential in every human being.
[4] Moreover, Slavson - who still exerted substantial influence in the organization after the end of his presidency in 1940 - strictly ensured that the institution remained classically Freudian, orthodox and in a clear defensive position to Neo-Freudians, existentialists and transactional analysts.
According to Stumm et al. (1992), "Slavson justified the recognition of group psychotherapy as a scientific discipline, provided fundamental theoretical contributions to this end and established a professional organization in the United States, which laid out binding guidelines for qualified training for the first time.
In 1964, Slavson put forward a summary of his theoretical developments and practical experience in the volume A Textbook in Analytic Group Psychotherapy.
He combined Freud's theory of psychosexual development with terms from the field of sociology and recognized the human search for relationships and acceptance as a primary need.