Group Psychotherapy: Frame of Reference for Training

Abstract

Summary The International Congress of Medical Psychotherapy in 1979 gives the group psychotherapies a place on equal footing with other forms of psychotherapy. This paper follows first the evolution of the group psychotherapies as a frame of reference in therapy to than go on to the subject of training in this ambit. There are many forms of group psychotherapy which emerge from different models of the human being and different philosophies. ?Should group psychotherapists be trained in all these techniques? The author does not think so. He thinks that there is a place for many different forms of training and practice, and that experience and investigation will help us find an adequate fit between treatment and the needs of the patients as well as training and the personality and capacity of the future professional. The paper centers particularly on analytic group psychotherapies, their process of separation/individuation from the “paternal matrix” of psychoanalysis and their specific characteristics as a frame of reference in the training of professionals.