Theoretical models and technical aspects of group psychotherapy

Introduction

Group therapy focuses on the interactions that occur within the group, which
becomes a space to air the problems of each of the members and
find solutions to them; just like individual psychotherapy, this method of
the work is aimed at helping people resolve their conflicts, reconnecting with
emotional balance, stimulate personal growth, enhance their skills
social and equip them with the coping tools they need. The objective
It is essential that the group be the instrument that enhances the desired change.
group therapy is so effective because people feel that they are not alone with their
problem, the isolation that many had subjected themselves to breaks down; on the other hand,
the possibility of sharing your emotions and thoughts without fear of criticism
fosters a high level of group cohesion that leads to psychological changes
more stable over time.

Different schools have made contributions to the field of group psychotherapy, the
psychoanalytic, Gestalt, cognitive, and systemic school, hand in hand with various
theorists like Bion, Kohut, Anzieu or Mitchell from psychoanalysis or Bertalanffy
from the systemic perspective, more and more different approaches find common ground
common that allows psychotherapy to have more integrative hues, thus therapists
Cognitive approaches, for example, are finding increasing interest in terms of
as transference and counter-transference.

Development

Individual analytical psychotherapy has been enriched with numerous categories of

dynamic group-oriented psychotherapies based on relationship theory
of the object, the psychoanalytic psychology of development or ego psychology, psychology
of itself, the psychoanalytic phenomenology and the drive-relational model; of it
In this way, an analytical group psychotherapy has been technically developed.
Brief. Group analysis is a theory imbued with Gestalt notions.
and systemic approaches that were developed parallel to the techniques proposed by Foulkes.

The works of certain Argentine, Californian, and other authors take place
based on the formulations of Melanie Klein and Bion. Grinberg, Langer and
Rodriguéz proposes to interpret the group as a whole and the individual within the group.
function of the way the dynamic collective constellation lives. They describe
different roles in the individual members of the group; the radar subject that captures the
problems of others, the historian, the boss. In general, the roles are
interchangeable throughout the history of a group, two co- are also introduced
therapists in the group, separating the role of the mother from the role of the father. The groups

they were small in size and long-lasting and the patients mainly presented
neurosis and personality disorders.

For Kaës and Anzieu, the notion of group psychic apparatus carries the idea of
existence of a certain psychic organization, through some mechanisms called
psychic organizers of the bond; some particular forms of these
organizers are; the individual ghost, the parental imago, the original ghost, the
Oedipus complex and the group psychic envelope. The group stimulates in the patient
wishes of imaginary realization, these constitute the first organizer that sets in
antagonistic processes such as group illusion and the ghosts of
destruction; the parental image, particularly the paternal one, would constitute the second of the

organizers, which stabilizes the groups, as it opens the group’s imaginary universe to
symbolic world, the emergence of original ghosts as a third organizer
it favors the progressive anchoring of the psyche in the bodies; the fourth organizer
it has a meta-organizer role; to conclude, the fifth is the group psychic envelope,
this organizes the entire mental apparatus and represents the equivalent of the Skin Ego one of

the main proposals in Anzieu's theory.

The movement of the encounter groups, which emerged in the late 1970s
60s among which were marathons, T groups, awareness groups
and Gestalt techniques aimed to intensify emotional experiences
through techniques that exhibited certain common characteristics: they assumed that the
adaptation of personality and changes in behavior depended on contact
mutual emotional connection between the therapist and the patient in the here and now; they proposed that the

change took place before insight and cognition with the therapeutic process;
On the other hand, historical materials would not be of interest and would have to be broken.

directly the resistances; the duration, in short, was limited to a few hours or to
some sessions.

The interpersonal group psychotherapy model is mainly concerned with the

interactions and the resulting dynamic interpersonal learning; the importance
the group's center as a micro-social cosmos, cohesion and the group process,
activation of the here and now and the corrective emotional experience are fundamental in this
procedure, as well as the role of the therapist when facilitating feedback
interpersonal and effective therapeutic work.; interpersonal psychotherapy
psychodynamics that differs from the previous one only by a greater interest
marked in the interpretation of the transfer, has not been used in groups. The
groups led by classical behaviorists believe that, since the symptoms
Neurotics come from a bad learning experience, it should be enough to modify behavior.
through techniques such as systematic desensitization, immersion or the
inoculation to treat neurosis; on the contrary, they undervalue what happens in the
interior of the human psyche, which they consider to be the black box of the model of
conditioning; over the past few years, behaviorism has slowly abandoned
the rigid stimulus-response paradigm and has become increasingly interested in the
theory as in practice, due to what happens in the famous black box, what has been
made evident in third generation or contextual therapies.

In family therapy, the goal of treatment is to make the dynamics less rigid.
communications between the different family members, the
interpretation of unconscious phenomena, which makes neither the analysis of the
dreams, nor does free association hold importance, the interventions are direct and
they aim to modify the stiffness of the system, improving perception
of the communications between individuals, this with the support of techniques such as role
playing, sculpting; this is sometimes achieved through techniques like connotation
positive, the prescription of the symptom and paradoxical statements; like the therapist
plays an active role and is fully available, the true phenomena of
transfers are difficult to appreciate, or at least they are not used to be
interpreted. The resistances mainly stem from the system's fear of the
change; since there is no interpretation of the unconscious content, there is no resistance to
content and, since the transfer is not taken into account, the resistances regarding
they are also ignored.

In recent dates, the approach has been remarkable among psychotherapists.

dynamic and cognitive-behavioral, despite the differences, 30% of the
cognitive-behavioral therapists said that they were interested in transference and the
countertransference compared to 88% of orientation clinicians
psychodynamics and 20% took into account latent group processes, this
the approach should be intensified since, although at the beginning of its development, the
cognitive-behavioral and rational therapy groups made no reference to the
block box, today they are interested in transfer, countertransference, the levels of
group intervention, the relationship between process and content and the identification of the
underlying themes in group processes.

Some original concepts such as the principle of equifinality, the concept of state
stable, the concept of negentropy; certain theoretical and technical aspects of the approach
systemic originate from psychoanalysis, there is a parallel between the idea of
family secrets and the Freudian unconscious; the technique of reformulation had already
has been used in psychotherapy in order to facilitate the acceptance of an interpretation
hard to accept, showing its more digestible side; the prescription of the symptom is
was already frequently used in analytical psychotherapy in the fight against defenses
masochists; the recreation of more appropriate alternative behaviors than those that
they manifested in a specific situation in the past, comes from psychodrama.

The framework in which the group is carried out is a decisive factor for a
proper functioning, the place must be intimate and always the same; the duration of
the sessions should be between forty-five and one hundred twenty minutes; the frequency of
one to five times a week; certain therapists do not like to give instructions to the
group members at the beginning of the treatment, but others prefer to make a
preparation through a certain number of individual sessions. The driver is the
responsible for the training of the group, for this, they must make an appropriate selection
of the patients that comply with the approach criteria; it must be able to detect
to patients who present a high risk of abandonment, taking into account the
clinical contraindications and indicators of the likelihood of premature abandonment,
similarly, he is responsible for creating a group culture that constitutes
the set of functional characteristics that differentiate a group of
another and that give them their identity; the group must acquire a certain number of forms
to function to fulfill its therapeutic role.

Group processes have been referred to as that series of phenomena that arise in
the groups and that can facilitate or hinder therapeutic development. A first
group process is the one of imparting information through interaction between the
components, which increase throughout the therapeutic session, during the
successive sessions, this allows for a gradual contact that will lead to
a certain cohesion among the members; it also aids in the development of techniques of
socialization; cohesion goes hand in hand with a certain homogenization of the group in terms of
to the adoption of operating standards, thought schemes and
more or less common aspirations, favored by the group process of behavior
imitative; homogenization conditions the existence of a certain common radical in each
group, particular and unique to him, which has come to be called the essence, the spirit,
soul of the group; the homogenization and identification of individuals with their
companions and with the therapist lead to a certain regression of the individuals and of the
group as a whole, which tends to organize itself according to forms that reproduce those of
a family.

In the course of group psychotherapy, insight phenomena arise, that is, of

more or less abrupt understanding of situations that were unconscious until then; the
the emergence of insight follows paths somewhat different from those in individual psychotherapy. It is

more difficult in a group to gain insight about certain situations related to the
parent-child relationship that in individual psychotherapy, just like in this
A detailed understanding of the genesis of the symptoms is achieved better.
neurotics; the term catharsis refers to certain phenomena of
massive outbreak of unconscious feelings, facilitated by regression; others
group processes would be the condensation that would occur after the discharge, phenomena
of chain by which, after the emergence of feelings in a member, they
they produce chain reactions of feelings in other group members; the resonance
a group process is designated by which certain contents manifested by
a component of the group also affects other members, even if it is in different ways
levels; the process by which associations are produced is called reactive association
spontaneous events from the past life in some member of the group, in
on occasions, it has a defensive nuance, in the sense of trying to escape, through the
association, of the here and now of the group.

Conclusions

Group psychotherapy allows for several narratives about individual problems.

in such a way that a reconstruction of the realities can be made; the space
Therapeutic group will open the way to see, think, and feel a social construction.
different from the one known in the family space, expanding one's own and creating a
New, group psychotherapy defines a process that shifts the problematic discourse.
from individual tone to group; finally, it is suggested that group interaction
will allow one to realize that others have issues to resolve just like oneself,
what allows the therapist to identify their own irregularities, the mechanisms of
defense mechanisms that one might think appear in individual therapy are presented
also in a joint manner affecting the integrity of the members and of the
group, therefore concepts like transference, counter-transference, insight are not
only from the field of individual psychotherapy.

Bibliographic reference

Guimón, J., (2003). Manual of group psychotherapies: types, models, and programs.
pp. 93-109, 113-123, New Library.