The aim of this exploratory study was to determine the relationships between elements of group interaction in an acute psychiatric setting. The subjects were 204 adults with a major mental illness who attended a lower-level psychotherapy group. A questionnaire containing seven therapeutic elements was administered to the subjects at the end of one of the group sessions. Only one factor emerged, labelled ‘Openness to group interaction’, which explained 59.3% of the variance. Apart from the unknown percentage of error variance, the remaining 40.7% of the variance indicated that the seven elements were unique, separate processes to some extent. They should, therefore, be considered individually when monitoring changes in group interactive processes of acute psychiatric clients.
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