ABSTRACT
The keynote to the group-analytic situation is its flexibility and its spontaneity, and these two, from the very beginning, give it its specific character. The group meets and shapes itself into a circle. The group-analytic situation has been compared to a projective test, where the material is alive and multidimensional, and into which each patient must actively thrust his whole personality. The homogeneous group should be run on closed lines, the various factors greatly intensifying the group-analytic process. Certain severe personality disorders – homosexuality, addiction, delinquency – show possibly more therapeutic promise in this type of group than in any other therapeutic situation except a very long and intensive psychoanalysis. Like psychoanalysis, group-analysis is an uncovering therapy. Defences are analysed, conflicts bared, and insight into apparently irrational modes of behaviour and interaction is achieved. Each patient both experiences and observes the dynamic processes and disturbances that are generated in the group.
