Objective: How can an out-patient group therapy be described under sytemic aspects?
Design: An overview of a successfully working group psychotherapy with elderly people is given and analyzed under systemic aspects.
Materials and Methods: An initial and a final questionnaire with questions from a systemic point of view is described. These questionnaires, transcripts from all the sessions and group portraits are used to show the interactions within the group. The process and the outcome of several courses of the one year therapy are discussed under psychoanalytical and systemic theories.
Results: Although systemically oriented publications about working with the elderly as well as therapeutic group processes are very seldom, some phenomena can very suitably be explained and enlightened under aspects of systemic thinking. The author especially includes paradigms of the "Institute for Systemic Studies" (ISS) in Hamburg, Germany.
Conclusions: 1) Systemic therapeutic principles are very adequate for the specific conditions of aging people;
2) The "therapeutic dilemma" can particularly be studied in a group therapy with the elderly; and
3) The "concept of membership" (LUDEWIG, Germany) is very suitable in the psychotherapeutic work with the elderly.
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