The transition from troubled adolescent to working group member is rarely achieved with ease. The adolescent psychotherapy group with its tendency towards higher group anxiety levels and subsequent skilled defences, and its dependence on behavioural rather than verbal expression requires particular attention. When a psychotic psychopathology is then superimposed upon an already turbulent adolescent process the difficult task of integrating the adolescent into the therapeutic group is massively intensified.

In this paper I shall address myself both to the Psychotic Adolescent in the context of the therapeutic community and more specifically in the psychotherapy group.