ABSTRACT
Relational life involves a duality. The human being needs groups, and not only dyadic relationships, to secure a psychological identity, to organize and ground thinking, and to grow emotionally. Combined treatment confronts and even subverts many of the conventions and conventional ideas of individual and group psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The theory and practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy preceded group psychotherapy. Likewise, most theorists and practitioners conceive of and recommend group psychotherapy following individual therapy. At the prospect of innovation and change, large groups such as psychoanalytic, political or religious organizations, may become "paranoiagenic", and take conservative or counter-revolutionary stances. Given its short history, with the first paper published only 60 years ago, combined psychoanalytic psychotherapy has an established system of theory and belief. The experience and expression of psychic reality comprise the true subject of people's psychotherapeutic investigations. The therapist's commitment in thought and action to the idea of the combined practice impacts all aspects of his or her professional life.
