In individual psychotherapy the patterns of the child-parent relationship are relieved and their pathogenic elements removed. The transference in group treatment corresponds to the fact that the child's character is influenced not only by the parents, but by the total family group as a social unit. Where group therapy is looked upon as therapy through a group, the group functions as a substitute family and provides a wide field for the testing of various forms of social reality.

Ackerman's formulations as to the details of the dynamics effective in group therapy seem a little premature and not quite as impressive as his reports about what is actually going on in this form of treatment.