PATHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THERAPEUTIC GROUPS

Abstract

It is a clinically established fact that some meetings of so-called "therapeutic" groups are judged by participants as "bad" or pathogenic experiences, while other meetings of the same group of individuals led by the same therapist are valued as "good" or orthogenic experiences. This paper deals with the task of recognizing, with the aim of controlling, those group dynamic factors which tend to interfere with or lower the therapeutic potential of any given group meeting. The method employed relied on comparative observation of "good" with "bad" therapy group meetings. At the end of every group meeting of adult patients in private practice an evaluation of the meeting's "worth" is made