Some Techniques of Group Therapy

The group analytic situation affirms the importance of identifying and mobilizing whatever “real self” elements can be discovered in the various group individuals. The indications are clear that without such a process brought into operation quickly, a condition not dissimilar from one of total war would soon prevail in the therapeutic situation, with a consequent rapid dissolution of the group.

The group therapeutic process is viewed as a macrocosm in which several microcosms are operating. Left to its own devices, however, it can not continue to exist. For this reason the analyst must be prepared to take a very active part in its continuity. The forces that make for explosive fragmentation require constant, vigilant attendance and omnipresent meaningful participation. This means that the fullest familiarity on the part of the therapist with theory is required. In addition, it would seem highly desirable that he be well on the way in his own personal analysis. We are emphasizing at this point the importance of accessibility to his own feelings and their nuances.

Of prime concern in this connection is the importance of creating the spirit of the scientific laboratory for the major obstructive force which seems to be encountered at the outset and is the one in which the group situation is not viewed constantly as a therapeutic one, but rather as a “personal” one—personal in the sense of the usual neurotic demand that their needs be considered first, etc., etc. Once this spirit has been defined it has constituted an invaluable aid in the maintenance of a certain amount of order in the therapeutic process. This might be considered one way of obtaining an “in” in the group situation against which the details of the patients’ neurotic processes can be placed in relief. Naturally whatever can be elicited to strengthen this spirit must be encouraged.

Tentatively group psychoanalysis is defined as the analysis of individuals in a group situation. Since our concern is with each