ABSTRACT
In group psychotherapy the group itself, as a token representation of the surrounding community and its culture, is for the first time called into the consulting room, into active co-operation within the treatment situation. The individual's neurotic conflict appears in the therapeutic-group situation in a dynamic, even dramatic form. The individual behaves in a therapeutic group as he does elsewhere, in a way characteristic for him: he re-establishes typical conflict situations. In a therapeutic group, however, the conflicts thus re-created are brought into the open. They reveal themselves as the most relevant, unresolved, pathogenic inner conflicts which are at the root of neurotic breakdown. Important incidents occur on the intrinsic boundary of the confined psychological space of the therapeutic group, the T-situation, such as acting out, etc. Such incidents are often long concealed, but often tangible and manifest, for instance by demands for individual attention, individual interviews.
