We recommend that those seeking groupanalytic treatment approach a groupanalyst who is recognised by the Portuguese Groupanalytic Society. They can be found on the list of “Portuguese Groupanalysts” on this website..

Groupanalysis and Group analytic psychotherapies have relevancy for a wide variety of pathologies, from difficulties in interpersonal relationships to problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosomatic illnesses, behaviour disorders, and even some psychotic problems.

Motivation is one of the main  contributing factors to successful treatment.

The treatment consists of group sessions of approximately 1 hour 20 minutes, two or three times a week. Admission to the group is in the responsibility of the groupanalyst, the maximum number of patients being eight.  The context of the sessions is one of free, “flowing”, expression. The groupanalyst encourages verbal communication between members of the group in the most spontaneous way possible, as well as exercising an interpretative role.

Put simply, we can say that the groupanalyst gives a name or meaning to the emotions and feelings which are being experienced by each member of the group, as well as relating that which is taking place in the “here and now”, with the past history of each one. The groupanalyst affords a space where novel and constructive inter-personal relationships with other members of the group and with the analyst himself, may be experienced. Each one, therefore, has the possibility of being able to establish in their lives,  new adaptive and constructive relationships.

Insofar as Groupanalysis takes place in a group, the family group, as well as all the other groups through which one passes throughout ones life, (school, social, cultural, recreational, religious, sport, professional, etc), may be recreated, thereby stimulating the appearance of memories. Such memories may be more or less present or hidden among our internal workings, but this experiencing of the group facilitates their exposure and therefore results in a satisfactory realization of the task in hand.

Added to these facets of treatment is the fact that, in groupanalysis, we can see one another and can ourselves be seen. The groupanalyst and the patients sit facing one another in a circle. Besides making possible the easy understanding of verbal and non-verbal language, this type of setting mimics more faithfully the early relationship with the mother ( that which we know today to be fundamental for the development of personality) insomuch as the look is all-important. The group setting also reflects the type of relationship that we habitually form with other people in our lives.

We know today that the therapeutic effect of analytic processes is connected to the possibility that we have of making conscious that which was unconscious but  principally related to the opportunity to live an implicit but healthy relationship with the analyst. Based on the above, therefore, we can say that the groupanalyst affords in a special way, this desiderata, since we are faced with our primordial scenario – the family.

We know today, and it should not be forgotten, that our emotions and feelings have a sensorial, perceptive, fundamental component which is obviously observed in groupanalysis. They are the emotions and feelings which are engraved on our memory (explicit and implicit) and relegated to the very depths of our mental life. Groupanalysis therefore permits a more all-encompassing “visit” to each one’s internal world, and thus allows a reconstruction that will help towards a life which is more adaptive to the diverse group contexts in which we move.

Groupanalysis, as well as other group psychotherapies of an analytic configuration, may be accompanied, in specific cases, by a psychopharmacological component (medication). Recent studies have revealed that, in certain cases, psychopharmaceutics open a therapeutic “window”, or, in other words, the association between these two treatments is greater than the sum of the parts.

The duration of a groupanalysis varies according to the patient’s pathology, motivation, their capacity for internal change, and the ultimate goal (in the case of groupanalysis for training purposes, for example).

Groupanalysis is, nevertheless, a long process since what is at stake is not only the disappearance of symptoms but also a more profound change, which entails the capacity to better deal with internal and external conflicts and the capacity to establish healthier  relationships with others.

Like other treatments, the cost may be set against tax on presentation of the respective receipts.