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The [[notion ]] of group psychotherapies encompasses a considerable [[number ]] of techniques and different [[theoretical ]] points of view. Strictly [[speaking]], group [[psychotherapy ]] is a method for treating [[psychopathology ]] and its concomitant [[suffering ]] by means of the specific [[action ]] of the group's [[processes ]] on the individuals who comprise it. There is also a [[model ]] of group psychotherapy that seeks to treat the group as a specific [[whole]]. To accomplish its therapeutic aims and bring [[about ]] the corresponding changes in [[personality]], group psychotherapy mobilizes in the participants the [[psychological ]] exploration and [[work ]] that ensues necessarily as a result of the [[development ]] of [[intersubjective ]] and transsubjective [[links]]. Various appropriate mechanisms are directed toward this end.

This method of psychotherapy is probably the oldest [[form ]] of [[mental ]] and [[psychosomatic ]] care. [[Treatment ]] regimens practiced in the Asclepion at Pergamon (Bergama) included group sessions of [[dream ]] [[interpretation]], as the ancient writings of Aelius Aristides reveal. However, the term "group psychotherapy" is [[recent]]: It was introduced by [[Jacob ]] Moreno around 1930. Various attempts had been made prior to that, from Franz von Mesmer's tub to the explorations of J. H. Pratt (1905) or Trigant Burrow (1914). On the eve and at the beginning of the Second [[World ]] War, Kurt Lewin and his collaborators developed the basics of group dynamics, based on [[Gestalt ]] [[theory]], observations of experimental groups, and group [[training ]] programs. Siegmund Foulkes and Wilfred R. Bion established the groundwork for group [[analysis ]] and [[psychoanalytic ]] group psychotherapy. During the 1950s and 1960s this trend saw a remarkable upsurge in the [[United States]], [[Latin ]] America (Enrique Pichon-Rivière, José Bleger), and in [[Europe]], notably in Great [[Britain]], [[France]], and Italy.

There is considerable variation among the theories, [[practical ]] techniques, and goals of group psychotherapies, but a certain number of characteristics are common to all its forms. The group is composed of a relatively small number of participants (from [[three ]] to about a dozen) who come together for a limited [[time]]. The restricted size of the group enables each of its participants to perceive and enter into [[relationship ]] with each of the [[others]]; the time limitation, whether or not it is predetermined (long-term groups, short-term therapies, groups that gradually become more open), makes it possible to work with the [[resistance ]] effects provoked by the group's institutionalization.

Several combinable classification criteria can be used to distinguish different types of groups: mono-[[therapy ]] or cotherapy groups; groups centered on the group or on the [[individual]]; on [[speech ]] or on nonverbal modes of expression (ergotherapies, art therapies, [[writing]], [[music]]); on psychodramatic [[role]]-playing or on the [[body ]] (bioenergy, [[primal ]] scream, relaxation); on [[family ]] relations (psychoanalytic and systemic family therapies); on instituted groups (therapy groups within institutions, therapeutic communities). Regardless of the form of [[communication ]] used to put the therapeutic processes into play ([[words]], screams, improvised or scripted role-playing, sculpting, painting, music, puppets), each theory has its own way of assessing the therapy's processes and effects.

According to the psychoanalytic conception, the group constitutes a staging ground for the externalization, figuration, and contention of pathogenic representations that are unacceptable in the intrapsychic [[space]]; it is a [[mechanism ]] for linking and [[dynamic ]] transformation of the [[formations ]] and processes that cannot be internally bound without this detour through the work of [[intersubjectivity]]. Groups result in specific modes of [[transference ]] and resistance. [[Interpreting ]] these produces a reorganization of the [[psyche ]] in its [[encounter ]] with the [[object]]-based [[reality ]] of others, with the prohibitions and founding statements of [[psychic ]] [[life ]] and of intersubjectivity. For its members, the group constitutes a powerful identificatory [[anaclisis]]; it generates [[creativity ]] and the capacity for [[symbolization ]] between intrapsychic and [[bodily ]] reality and intersubjective and [[social ]] reality. However, numerous [[clinical]], methodological, and theoretical problems have yet to be worked out. Group psychotherapies are not a panacea. They require a personal [[demand ]] and personal training; their effectiveness depends on the specific indications, limits, and principles involved.