Camping marathon group psychotherapy for adolescents.

Abstract

The effects of adolescent group psychotherapy were studied on 253 adolescent patients and 98 parents who participated in a camping marathon group psychotherapy (MGT) conducted every summer from 1972 to 1982 by the staff of the psychiatry division of Fukuoka University Hospital. Among the factors examined were the relations of the present therapy with age, individual therapy, types of disorders, the nature of conflicts of the patients, the attitudes of the patients and their parents toward the therapy and countertransference of the therapists. The objects and adjustment patterns of patients in the group therapy are considered to be dependent on these and other interrelated factors. Some of the patients adjusted to their psychological trauma resulting from their past human relations through re-experiencing identity crisis in the group as a transitional object. They did not maintain their enhanced self-esteem through the group experience, but apparently utilized the transitional object they identified with as a model in overcoming their crises when they returned to the real life situation and confronted their actual problems. The actual effect of the camping MGT, therefore, may be evaluated when the nature of the disorders and therapeutic goals of individual patients, revealed during the present therapy, are further dealt with in the family, individual and regular group therapy following the camping MGT.