TOWARD INTEGRATION THROUGH GROUP-BASED PSYCHOTHERAPY - BACK TO THE FUTURE

This approach to the integration of psychotherapy differs from those p reviously presented in this journal in at least two respects. First, i t was developed on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain between 1950 a nd 1968 before it was introduced to North America. Second, although it embraces individual, group and family modes of treatment, its main in spiration comes from a specific therapeutic community. The practical g oal of this approach was to create both a quality-focused and cost-eff ective psychotherapy in a country with newly nationalized health servi ces; the theoretical goal was to integrate the empirically accessible themes of psychoanalysis, learning theory, and ethology. The result wa s a conceptual framework based on an extended theory of small social g roups. A highly cost effective clinical system developed from this app roach and was applied to the population of Prague in the 1960s. The ap proach is recommended for evaluation by clinicians and managed-care ad ministrators in the budget-conscious 1990s in the United States and el sewhere.