Utilizing Transference-Focused Psychotherapy Interventions in Group Psychotherapy for Personality Disorders

Transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) is a modified form of psychoanalytic psychotherapy grounded in object relations theory. It was developed to treat borderline personality disorder but has been used with a broader range of personality pathology. Notable adaptations include establishing an explicit treatment contract; a grounding in the domains of work, intimacy, and creativity rather than strict free association; a more formalized structure for training and supervising therapists; and a staged approach to interpretation that focuses sequentially on the elucidation of dominant object relations dyads, role reversals, and in later stages insight into dyadic layering and unconscious motivations. This article suggests that, whereas the existing literature on transference-focused group psychotherapy (TFP-G) emphasizes the use of group-as-a-whole interpretations, the clinical application of TFP principles in group psychotherapy for personality pathology could draw from TFP's approach to interpretation in individual therapy to elaborate a range of interventions that could be deployed according to patient needs and abilities. This flexible approach could remain compatible with the object relations model of borderline personality organization elucidated by Kernberg, while drawing upon the strategies, techniques, and tactics of individual TFP to equip group therapists with a broader array of tools than have been proposed thus far. Doing so would improve the model's ease of application, enhance flexibility, and mitigate potential drawbacks of group approaches emphasizing whole-group interpretations. Such adaptations could be useful to TFP-G therapists per se and group therapists with an integrative approach.