An argument against the use of the alternate session in analytic group therapy

Abstract

It is often difficult to engage in a discussion regarding the use of alternate sessions (regularly scheduled meetings without the therapist) in analytic group therapy because those on one side of the issue tend to become critical of those on the other, rather than presenting a valid theoretical rationale for the position taken. This is not to say that the content of such criticism is entirely irrelevant, but rather that arguments should be derived from a theoretical formulation and not presented in place of one. This paper represents an attempt to approach that objective by delineating the basis in psychoanalytic theory for a decision against the use of the alternate session in analytic group therapy. Psychoanalytic theory clearly defines emotional conflicts as essentially intrapsychic, leaving aside the issue of constitutional factors. Interpersonal and/or social problems can develop as derivatives of these intrapsychic conflicts. Through processes of introjection and identification, aspects of significant external objects in an infant's life, usually the parents, become internalized, and gradually what are known as internal selfand object-representations come to exist. From an early point in life, emotional disturbances have more to do with this internal object world and the child's struggles with it than they do with external reality. By the time adulthood is reached, it is generally agreed among psychoanalysts that early object relations have laid down a pattern for subsequent interpersonal relationships, a pattern which may later be embroidered upon but which for the most part does not substantially change without therapeutic intervention. It is a major premise of psychoanalytic theory and technique that these early patterns will be repeated in the patient's transference to the therapist and to the members of the group, and that basic structural and dynamic changes