The therapist's anxiety and resistance to group therapy

When therapists contemplate starting groups, consider placing an individual patient within an existing group or respond to the group reconfigurations when members are added or replaced It raises their anxiaties and resistance s. Under these circumstances. the therapist must contend with many intersub jective factors: dread fear, and idealization of groups; contagion and ampl ification of psychological phenomena; absorption in the group mentality; ma gnification of the therapists centrality and importance; exposure and distu rbance of existing relationships, and utilization of one's own emerging and evolving thoughts, feelings, and fantasies, along with the group's. Therap ists learn about themselves and their groups by reviewing their countertran sference, being alert to possible enactments, and listening to their patien ts, whose anxieties a nd resistances to group often reflect their own.