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This article embodies the experience of the psychiatric staff of a prepayment health plan which includes psychiatry. Group therapy was found to be the preferred form of treatment for certain 'borderline' psychotics, for patients
unused to introspection, and for those with rigid characterological armor. A relative homogeneity of education, age, socioeconomic status, but varying personalities, is desirable among members of the same group. The usefulness of group therapy for such persons can be attributed to the decreased pressure for active participation, the lessened intensity of emotional involvement, the dilution and multiplicity of the transference, the support by 'siblings', the relatively anxiety-free resistance, the predominance of reality over fantasy, the accessibility of the façade of the personality to analysis, and the opportunities for education.
Group therapy is particularly suitable for schizoid types with loneliness, distrust, and fear of emotional ties, and for those who have slight familiarity with the language of feeling, such as psychosomatic patients who are narrow and rigid, especially those who are belligerent and demanding. In other words, group therapy, contrary to common belief, is to be recommended for many seriously disturbed patients.