Three group psychotherapy settings with long-term adolescent inpatients: advantages and disadvantages

The authors describe three types of group psychotherapy settings on an adolescent service. The group setting which included all patients on the unit and employed multiple therapists and several nursing staff provided better communication, cohesiveness, and greater opportunity for staff training. Small groups provided comparatively more time for patient participation, less distraction, and better disclosure. Mixing patients from different units resulted in objective and keener observations by patients, but hall meetings became increasingly necessary to work out interpersonal issues among patients from the same unit. These observations by staff were confirmed by a patient questionnaire.