Particular difficulties beset psychoanalytically orientated group therapy with married couples from the working class (as classified according to occupation and linguistic code). Guided by Bernstein's linguistic-sociological work, Junker accounts for communication difficulties between therapist and patients on the basis of the latters' preference for action-orientated rather than problem-orientated or person-orientated verbalization—a preference derived from class-specific socialization and work experience. A case history documents the class-specific interaction style and the limits placed on the capacity for self-interpretation. The translation of psychoanalytic interpretations into the experiential world of working-class patients requires mediation—group dynamics and a social field, after and beyond the therapy, created by the patients themselves.