ABSTRACT
The therapist's background of experience can vary widely in detail, so can the patients problems and the general conditions under which they meet. Any change in any of these preconditions influences the group-therapeutic situation in major and minor detail. The group analyst brings with him the experience of his work with individual patients. He is familiar with the analytic situation. He can understand, handle and analyse transference reactions in terms of their unconscious significance. He has an overall dynamic view of human behaviour and character which he acquires particularly from the analysis of the ego and its defense-mechanisms. Initial difficulties in view of the unusual character of the group-analytic situation are another matter. It is the Therapist's function to help the patient by the way in which he introduces him and in which he handles the group's reception of him.
