Historical Introduction to Group
therapy in the treatment of anorexic- bulimic disorder
F.N.Vasta,
O. Caputo
The
image of the group is very archaic, for some aspects it
precedes the emerging image itself of the individual.
Etymology provides us with an important component that
we can find in groups. “knot” and through
derivation, bond and roundness as a space border, gratifying
fullness a metaphor of the breast ( Kaës, 1976)
The earliest experience of group therapy and particularly
of the use of the homogenous group can be found in H.J.
Pratt’s work dating back to 1905. Pratt, who worked
in that period at Boston hospital, organised, helped by
the hospital itself and by a religious community “Emanuel
Church”, a group of patients affected by the same
pathology (tuberculosis)with the objective to succeed
in subjecting to correct treatments as many patients as
possible.
The population Pratt addressed to often belonged to the
poorest and socially marginalized classes . They lived
far away from hospital structures. In a first stage patients
were visited individually after the formulation of diagnosis,
each of them received his/her medical treatment.
The group planned by Pratt met periodically and regularly
and, it made use of “a diary of sessions”
enabling to check progressively the group state. This
type of group was led by a doctor (Pratt) and provided
for the presence of another figure the “friendly
visitor” ( it was either a paid person or a volunteer
who played the role of interface between the medical institution,
the patient and the territory ). Pratt pointed out that
the recoveries of serious tubercular patients, taking
part in the group, were to be attributed to the group
function, making more tolerable medical prescriptions
just because they were shared and that this created the
most suitable conditions so that the patient’s compliance
might last in time. Pratt also noticed the importance
which had for his patients a better knowledge of their
own diseases, it derived from the exchange of anxieties
and fancies verbalised in group. Pratt regarded as fundamental
the impossibility of separating psychic from physical
aspects and he thought that psychotherapy coincided with
a beneficial influence of one person on another.
In comparison with this experience , it is to be pointed
out how through the “friendly visitor” Pratt
found that the improvement in the clinical conditions
of the patient occurred, too, on the level of “humour”
of the patient himself, and that this could be connected
with the cohesion state developed among the patients within
the group.
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