Intensive Group Therapy: An Effective Behavioral-Psychoanalytic Method

This paper describes the results of a clinical trial of a new method, intensive group therapy, devised explicitly to incorporate the principal advantages of three traditionally separate techniques: the intensive five-day-a-week format of psychoanalysis; the real-life quality of group therapy, which promotes social-interaction analysis and modification; and the punishment/reinforcement techniques of behavior therapy. The eight patients treated in the group all had had extensive but largely unsuccessful therapy; during the first 18 months of intensive group therapy seven of the eight made appreciable therapeutic gains.