Problems of scientific validation of group analytic psychotherapy

The aim of psychotherapy – individual or group psychotherapy – is to bring about change in painful feelings, distorted perceptions of self and others, dysfunctional behavior, etc. While there are many systematic studies of short term individual and group psychotherapy, researches of long term psychotherapy such group analytic psychotherapy is, hardly exist. The practice of group psychotherapy has resulted in rich, but descriptive clinical studies. As more studies accumulated, reviewers became more concerned with evaluation of therapy outcome. As the efficiency of different group approaches was established, questions about what was effective in the group process, and how treatments could be improved, gradually emerged. Problems of researches in group psychotherapy in general, and specifically in group analytic psychotherapy can be reviewed as methodology problems at first, validity and reliability problems, as well as problems of outcome (efficiency) and problems of the research of group process.