Group psychotherapy with adolescents

In working in a large general hospital with groups of disturbed adolescent patients from economically and emotionally deprived walks of life, therapists worked out a plan of outpatient group therapy that in general has had good results as measured by effective living and functioning in school, at home and with peers. Groups were limited to eight patients and meetings were held once a week with two co-therapists of different sexes. Therapists usually did not try to turn discussions in one direction or another. More active than in usual group work, the therapists did not hesitate to be didactic or educational as the topic or problem indicated.At termination of the group sessions, usually at the end of a school year as a natural time of leave-taking, the members who had benefited sufficiently faced the departure with little emotional wrench; those who had not were resentful, anxious, disappointed or relieved.