For the past 1½ years, I have established a slow open psychodynamic therapeutic group for persons with schizophrenia. The group takes place once weekly and is part of the treatment offered at a Danish public psychiatric outpatient unit in Copenhagen. Hence, the therapeutic group could be understood as a small group embedded in a larger group (the psychiatric hospital). During this initial phase, several violations of the therapeutic group was observed, violations that seem to originate in the surrounding organization. To a lesser degree, violations within and by the therapeutic group seemed to occur.

In my presentation, I will aim at presenting the process of establishing and continuing the therapeutic group in an environment that in some ways seems unfit to contain a psychodynamically informed therapeutic group. I will focus on the strains it has put on the group leaders and some of the reactions from the group leaders.

In my view, the changes in the organisation several times put pressure on one group-therapist to leave the group, which eventually happened.

The organizational changes further imposed the violation of a group boundary, namely that of having a fixed day and hour for the group meetings; When having moved to the new location, it was discovered that only one room could fit the group. The room was already occupied by a group for chronic schizophrenics and it was concluded that a new day and time for the group must be set.

These circumstances had a significant impact on the remaining group-therapist, which suffered some degree of demoralization, anger and resentment which again complicated the work within the group and might have led to violation of the group’s wish to develop.