Introduction

From the very early stages of childhood man is involved with and dependent on other people, and these experiences play a vital part in the development of personality. These years provide the foundations for later adaptive and maladaptive behaviour, and this early experience gives rise to development of what Berne (1975) called ‘scripts’, a term borrowed from theatrical terminology. He considered that the individual's life follows a certain pattern which is determined in childhood under the powerful influence of parental figures, as a result of which a person may behave as if he or she were an actor. As Shakespeare wrote:

Many interactions in group therapy are enactments of early childhood experiences and can readily be explored in the group setting. The aim of group psychotherapy is to provide a fuller and more accurate understanding of the self, and of the effect that an individual has on others in the group, and to evaluate the effect of others on the individual. Patients learn about themselves from the group leader and from other members of the group. They can discover how their behaviour and attitudes are often self-defeating and destructive, causing them to be misunderstood by others and causing others to misunderstand them. A cohesive, supportive, group can serve as a powerful encouragement in maintaining the patient's abstinence from drugs and alcohol.

Historical development of groups

Joseph Pratt (1908), an American physician, is often credited with being the father of group therapy. He started weekly ‘classes’ for the treatment of patients who had been rejected by sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis. The classes comprised 15 to 20 patients at a time and provided an opportunity for patients to learn more about their illness and to discuss and share their feelings with fellow patients. As a result of this supportive environment patients experienced an improvement in both morale and physical health.