Abstract
The basic criteria of psychoanalysis can be found in group psychotherapy of analytical origin. The neutral attitude of the psychotherapist, his attention oriented towards the search for unconscious phantasm and his position as an interpreter of the transfer promote the production of a vertical attachment beyond lateral transfers.
Just before puberty the pulsional drive is poorly differentiated. Physical and intellectual inferiority is compensated by the spontaneous formation of the group. Pathologies observed are also poorly differentiated: they take the form of behaviour disorders and neuroses.
Child therapists have adapted several formulas deriving from their ecological training: therapies based on attitudes, abreaction or transfer interpretation.
Whatever method is used, group therapy appears to satisfy the social appetite of preadolescents. They show certain difficulties in conceptualizing. For that reason we favour an approach allowing the use of play, drawing and other non-verbal methods of expression.
The therapist impresses his tastes and his personality upon the technique, thus bringing him satisfaction and making him more efficient.