Abstract
In a group context, the spontaneous play of young children expresses symbolically their free associations and their fantasies just as verbal productions of older children and adults treated in groups. The described technique allows us to treat latency and pre-school neurotic children, through the analysis of their collective play, according to the principles of Melanie Klein for the individual psychoanalysis of children. The trials we had with different groups in therapies lasting for more than a year, has convinced us that it is possible to interpret and work through the children's productions in group as in individual psychotherapy.
The technique can be modified for young psychotic patients and constitutes an excellent method of observation and treatment. The method can be further modified to include parents in group observation of children and families for diagnostic purposes.
This paper deals with methodology. We endeavoured to show that our method of group therapy was applicable to the different age groups and to the different psychiatric entities of adolescence and childhood. We purposely abstained from mentioning the evolution of these patients, since any percentage of improvement would be meaningless in such small series. However, we may add that some hopeless patients did not improve at all, but that many patients did show a remarkable improvement.