Group Therapy and Phobic-Obsessional Neurosis

Abstract

Group therapy is particularly valuable in the treatment of phobic obsessional neurosis, connecting both psychoanalytical and behavioural approaches. In group sessions it is possible to find a counterphobic situation but also to encourage, under control, a deep regression of the patient toward the most archaic levels of the psyche: that is, to lead him or her inside the symptom emerging from the problem of birth and death, where all phobias are in fact rooted. To demonstrate this assumption we consider dreams shared during group therapy by a woman suffering from phobic symptoms.