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'The term group analysis has been adopted by a number of workers, especially in the United States, who see in the method scarcely more than an application of psychoanalysis.' Foulkes, a freudian analyst, prefers the term 'group-analytic psychotherapy' and compares the conditions of the 'group-analytic situation' with the psychoanalytic situation. Both are intended to produce basic change rather than symptomatic relief.
The fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis are modified in certain ways in their application to the individuals in the group. 1. In the group-analytic situation members and therapist are more active and more concerned with the present. It is a special social situation which approximates to, and carries over into, real life, and which leads away from regressive transference toward progressive development. The therapist allows the group to define his position. In this he resembles the analyst; but the fact that his interpretations are directed to several persons who interact upon each other gives him an opportunity for therapy not available to the analyst. 2. Dynamics learned by psychoanalysis are observed in group situations but some dynamic factors are peculiar to groups. Communication is of central importance in the dynamics of a therapeutic group. This process together with the emotional experience and analysis of interpersonal relationships produces basic changes in the individual. Transferences cannot be analyzed as thoroughly as in psychoanalysis but present fewer complications in dissolution. 3. Since every symptom, process, syndrome, and diagnostic category is tested in the social group situation, the most important theoretical contribution of group psychotherapy will be to social psychology.
Psychoanalysis and group-analytic psychotherapy are regarded as 'complementary and mutually illuminating'. The author concludes, 'In the future, psychiatry and psychotherapy and psychopathology will be first of all based on their social grounds,