A verbal group technique for ego-disturbed children: action to words

The evolution of latency groups began over three decades ago with the inception of the activity group. Through modification and a greater emphasis on verbalization this developed into the play therapy model. At that time it was generally felt that verbal techniques were too threatening for latency age youngsters and that ego-defective children could not make use of a group approach. More recently successful work has been reported with both verbally oriented groups and groups with severely disturbed children. After tracing these developments, this paper describes a verbal, nondirective, insight-oriented group technique for ego-defective children. This technique is derived from the dynamics of latency, the techniques of individual play therapy, and the model of more conventional group psychotherapy. Clinical vignettes are reported to clarify the technique and demonstrate its efficacy. Though this approach is both demanding for the therapist and socially provocative in general, we think the results reported here require serious consideration and further evaluation.