ABSTRACT
A different kind of design is one in which the institution serves as its own control. The discharge statistics of an institution before and after the introduction of a particular treatment are compared. The study's validity hinges on the constancy of admission and discharge standards, as well as on equivalency of patients and comparability of staff and other aspects of institutional life. Therapy was conducted by four advanced graduate students in psychology, only one of whom had had previous group therapy experience. The goals of therapy were to reduce suspiciousness toward outsiders, release aggressions, encourage feelings of self-confidence and self-worth, and to develop feelings of responsibility for the subjects' own actions. A research project was carried out at Missouri State Hospital to evaluate a form of group therapy in which patients meet as a group without the presence of a therapist. Object-relations therapy is a bold approach to repatterning based upon psychoanalytically oriented developmental theory.
