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This doctoral thesis is the result of Steinar Lorentzen's research on the effect of psychotherapy based upon his intensive clinical work with groups.
Steinar Lorentzen is fully trained both as a psychoanalyst and a group analyst. He works in private practice in Oslo, where, for 10 years, he has conducted three long-term groups. All three groups had the same time schedule, meeting once a week for 1.5 hours, the average time with the groups being 32 months. The groups had the same therapist, Steinar Lorentzen, but in one of the groups, he worked together with an experienced social worker, a woman with full group-analytic training and long experience in psychiatry and group therapy. The method was classical analytic group psychotherapy, as outlined by Foulkes. This indicates that the therapist is intellectually active, but remaining in the background, and that interpretations are used as the main interventions, especially with focus on group phenomena. Sixty nine patients attended the groups and only two dropped out.
The research schedule consisted of a number of questionnaires applied at the start, after the end and at a one-year follow up. Steinar Lorentzen summarizes the problems of this type of research thoroughly and in a concise and clear style. He discusses the influence of strict demands on formalities, i.e., referring to standardized interventions or using alternating therapists. Such demands are of questionable value as they usually lead to a higher number of dropouts.
The degree of pathology at the start was measured by the two questionnaires, GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) and SCL-90 (Symptoms Check List 90). In this material, the mean score for GAF and the Global Severity Index in SCL-90 were 57.4 and 1.13, respectively Both numbers indicate a relatively weak pathology (compared to an outpatient clinic).
The first question raised by Lorentzen was on the effect of the group therapy. During the past decade, there has been established an internationally a