Preparing for group analytic psychotherapy: meeting the new patient

Abstract

Preparing for group analytic psychotherapy—the patient and yourself as a therapist—is apparently done in many ways and still invested with much controversy and ambivalence. Some say, they do no selection or assessment at all. The patients or clients are taken from the waiting list in alphabetic order. Other therapists—mainly those working in National Health Services—use several assessment interviews before including patients into short- or long-term groups. Either way, this article revives some research results about assessment and hopes to inspire therapists in their first contact with the patient by presenting some examples from a clinical outpatient practice in a mental health service.