ABSTRACT
The Group Analyst wants to give the patient a minimum of instructions, of programme or of rules, and a maximum of freedom in self expression, a maximum of active participation in what is going on. The less defined the situation, the more, the patient must stretch and strain himself, become engaged, in order to cope with it, the more he has to invest of his own mind into it. The basic rule of Group Analysis, in so far as the patients' verbal communications are concerned, is the group counterpart of free association: talk about anything which comes to mind without selection. It works out in a different way in the Group situation from the individual situation—just as it works out differently in the analytic situation from the procedure of self analysis. The Therapist, who has called them together, owes the Group an explanation at the stage.
