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Using excerpts from a tape-recorded group supervision, Argelander details the specific characteristics of psychoanalytic group therapy in comparison with individual therapy. In a classical case, conflicts between patient and therapist, which are provoked by the
therapeutic situation, are experienced as conflicts between personality components or as conflicts with figures who are not present. By contrast, the members of a group act out these conflicts according to a division of labor, i.e., in the form of differential reactions to a commonly shared acute situation. Group therapy gains in concreteness and dramatic vividness, but the participants lose in terms of opportunities for insight into the genetic dimension. The pseudo reality of the group situation and the colloquial meanings with which the group members articulate their behavior make it more difficult for them to absorb the psychoanalytic interpretation of the unconscious content of their conflicts. The group leader counters these defensive tendencies by facilitating a therapeutic ego split. He does this by insistently reminding the participants that the aim of their meetings is the treatment of illness.