Gustav Le Bon (1841-1931) was a major initial contributor. The development of group psychotherapy as a practical method was largely atheoretical, but nevertheless was influenced by the study of group processes. By the middle 30s Paul Ferdinand Schilder, an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was also laying the foundations of group psychotherapy He was conducting group sessions with psychotic children in the Bellevue hospital in New York. In 1931 he introduced group psychotherapy into the American Psychiatric Association and it is quite probable that he coined the term group psychotherapy. In the meantime in Europe, Jacob Moreno was developing psychodrama through his Theater of Spontaneity in Vienna (see chapter on psychodrama). Also, by being one of the first analysts to challenge the objective role of the therapist, he led the foundations for what was later referred to as intersubjectivity. He applied the basic analytic principle in groups, where the group was viewed as a whole and as a social constellation. In 1927 Trigant Burrow, an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, published The Group Method of Analysis and coined the term group analysis. In its beginnings, group psychotherapy was an entirely new point of view that challenged the dyadic analyst-analysant relationship by exposing it into a greater pool of human interaction. The defining characteristics of this type of therapy is that there was a set of rules in order to join the group and that patients would interact with each other and with the doctor.
He would lead groups of 15 patients and educate them on their disease, while they provided each other with mutual comfort. Pratt, an internist who developed what he called the “class method” (1905) for tuberculosis patients.
By this definition, it is generally accepted that group psychotherapy began in the early 20 th century, with the works of Joseph H. In general, today’s group therapy is defined as a type of psychotherapy where the therapist(s) and the group meet together and use the intragroup and/or the group-therapist or client-therapist interactions for the purpose of treatment.
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