ABSTRACT
When working with people with dementia and their relatives, it is sometimes hard to know who is "the sufferer". There is no doubt that caring for someone with senile dementia is a physically demanding, exhausting, and, at times, distressing task. Some carers cannot cope with the emotional demands placed upon them and seek out a residential placement for the sufferer. All of the sufferers were clients at a day hospital, which they attended between one and three days per week. All carers were offered the opportunity to join the relatives group, so they were self-selected. The group was held fortnightly for one-and-a-quarter hours while the sufferers attended the day unit. Relatives' support groups are not uncommon, but what may have been unusual about this one was that, in accordance with other types of psychodynamic group work, comments were taken up as ways of expressing or displacing more unconscious feelings.
