Towards a Group-Analytic Approach to Individual Psychotherapy

Abstract

Is there a distinctive group-analytic approach to individual psychotherapy? In seeking an answer to this question, the social context of psychotherapy is examined and the need for a psychotherapy of connectedness proposed. The group frame that group analysts inherently adopt in their psychotherapeutic work is seen as a valid basis for such an enterprise. A recasting of the therapeutic relationship and the transference-countertransference configuration in individual psychotherapy in line with this aim is proposed, in a way that draws on contemporary relational theories, including self psychology and the intersubjective school. It is likely that much of this is implicit in the way group analysts work with individuals. The challenge is to develop this as an explicit medium of individual therapy.