Up from Scapegoating is the first book that connects Jungian psychology and its usual focus on the individual and individual development to group theory and group development. Arthur Colman, a pioneer in developing group relations theory and practice in the United States, takes Jung's basic beliefs in the collective unconscious, individuation, and the shadow and shows their relevance to the problems of groups, institutions, and political systems.

His insights and new methods are extremely important in a nuclear and environmental age where every individual's survival is hinged to the happenings or consciousness of a larger group.