Psychoanalytic or didactic group psychotherapy?

Summary and Conclusions

Psychoanalytic and didactic group psychotherapies are not actually distinct categories. Which type of therapy is to be employed depends mainly on the mental status of the respective patients. Didactic group psychotherapy applies maximally to that vast reservoir of patients initially unsuitable for deep exploration; and it therefore is, in part, a preparation for such depth therapy, although it can in its own right effect many deep restructurizations of the personality. The recapitulation and replica of these phases of psychotherapy actually obtain in regular formal individual psychoanalysis, for as Freud has stated: “... in the first [stage] the physician procures from the patient the necessary information, makes him familiar with the premises and postulates of psychoanalysis. ...” This, the first stage of psychoanalytic therapy, expanded and enlarged, is the essence of didactic group psychotherapy.