GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE PRACTICE AND THE FORMATION OF HOMOGENEOUS SHORT TERM GROUPS

José Guimon

(click here for the French version)

1.
THE LENGHT AND THE COMPOSITION OF THE GROUP ARE TWO INTERCONNECTING VARIABLES

From the standpoint of their composition, groups of patients can be heterogeneous or homogeneous, depending on the socio-demographic characteristics and the diagnosis of the patients that can be similar or different. A multi-family group in a public day centre and a group of chronic schizophrenic patients in a hospital, are examples of the first type, while a psychotherapeutic group with an analytic approach of a group of out-patients will be composed in a mixed way: it will be made of heterogeneous patients in relation to the diagnosis, but homogeneous in relation to socio-demographic variables (age, sex, cultural and economic level etc.).
As far as the diagnosis of the patients who are in the homogeneous groups is concerned, different authors (De Rubeis 1998) proposed categories that can used in the field of studies to evaluate the success of psychotherapies.

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