In group work, it is particularly important to focus on experiences of the first six years of life because roots of present conflicts usually lie there. Group work encourages participants to relive significant relationships. Ideally the group functions as a symbolic family so that members can work through these early relationships.

Insight, understanding, and working through repressed material should be given primary focus in group therapy. Free association, dream work, analysis, and interpretation are essential components of effective group work. Due to the reconstructive elements of the analytic group, group work is usually long-term.

Object-relations theory focuses on predictable developmental sequences in which early experiences of the self shift in relation to an expanding awareness of others. It holds that individuals go through phases of normal symbiosis, separation, and individuation, culminating in a state of integration.

Concepts:

1. The therapist frequently makes interpretation for individuals in the group session.

2. In analytic group therapy, dealing with transference and resistance constitutes the bulk of the work.

3. Resistance in the psychoanalytic approach is viewed as an unconscious dynamic.

4. Uncovering early experiences is the primary goal of analytic group work.

5. Free association can be used for uncovering repressed material, helping members develop more spontaneity, working on dreams, and promoting meaningful interactions within the group.

6. Psychoanalytic dream work consists of interpreting the latent meaning of a dream. The manifest meaning of the dream is the actual dream.

7. Establishing an identity is an ongoing process during most of a life cycle.

8. Group disequilibrium occurs when members experience too little intimacy (isolation) or too much intimacy (engulfment).

9. Group malequilibrium exists when group members become so comfortable with one another, they avoid challenging each other's defenses.

Advantages of group work with a psychoanalytic approach are:

1. Members benefit from each other's work

2. Multiple transferences can be formed

3. Members learn to identify their own transferences

4. The group can function as a family