GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE LONELY PERSON IN OUR CHANGING TIMES

Abstract

Just as the early analysts with their particular cultural heritage and methods of treatment dealt with patients who were for the most part hysterics, we in our present urban society have our characteristic patient population and must gear our techniques accordingly. The culture of the Vienna of the late nineteenth century, where Freud lived and worked, was seen by Freud as an inhibiting one sexually. Fears, lack of sexual freedom, and guilt characterized the sexual life of the patients he met in his practice. The economy was one geared to production and our western society was still primarily rural.