This study aims to offer a historical overview of the emergence and evolution of group psychotherapy, tracing its roots, main models and theoretical bases. Its origin goes back to the beginning of the past century (1905), after which it evolved for five decades: the formative years. Further on, during the 50's and 60's, group psychotherapy went through a period of theoretical expansion, followed by a period of consolidation in the 70's, and maturation in the 80's and 90's. Finally, the study examines its recent evolution, highlighting the construction of new models. In the last few years, several treatment techniques have been developed to attend specific patient populations, with a variety of medical and psychosocial conditions, which suggests an increasing tendency towards a greater specificity of its application.

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Neste trabalho são revistos os fundamentos do desenvolvimento dos antipsicóticos de ação prolongada, a aderência ao tratamento, fatores que dificultam o seguimento da prescrição e suas conseqüências, benefícios e aceitação dos antipsicóticos de ação prolongada. A partir dos dados desta primeira parte do trabalho, os seguintes pontos devem ser destacados: a taxa de não aderência ao tratamento na esquizofrenia é em torno de 60%; por se tratar de uma doença crônica com elevado risco de recaída, a manutenção do medicamento auxilia no seu controle. Os antipsicóticos de ação prolongada foram desenvolvidos exatamente com este objetivo: garantir a administração do medicamento e a sua regularidade, condições essenciais na prevenção da recaída. Apesar dos benefícios inestimáveis do antipsicóticos de ação prolongada, diversos fatores contribuíram para que tivessem uma utilização aquém do seu potencial.

This study examines the patient in group psychotherapy, describing factors that provide changes during the process and the particularities of this therapeutic mode. Based on the available literature and the authors' systematic experience throughout thirty years of group therapeutic work, the variables that determine the commitment of the group members in a productive and well-succeeded therapeutic relation are discussed. It is emphasized how the patients assimilate the psychotherapeutic process and the way in which they participate in achieving their own improvement.

Nowadays, group psychotherapy designates a broad range of procedures based on different theoretical frameworks, applied to several contexts. The purpose of this study is to understand the group therapist's role, delineating some strategies and necessary abilities for group psychotherapy practice. The authors emphasize the technical-scientific level in which the work with groups is developed and the influence of the therapist's personality on the participants. They conclude that, in order to preserve their role without loosing the specificity of his function due to his involvement in multiple patients' experiences, therapists must have a stable professional identity. Therefore, the therapists' preparation, based on a process of continuing formation, is a necessary condition to enable them to face peculiar situations that occur in the group context and also to assure the singular therapeutic potential of group psychotherapy.

This study examines the concept of transference, focusing on its peculiarities in the group context. The nature of the therapeutic situation and the broad freedom given to patients in order to access the unconscious material at their own pace, within a safe environment and with as little censorship as can be managed, transference gradually takes place. Through displacement, the psychotherapist and group members are perceived not as they are, with their real attributes, but as one or more objects that arouse emotions coming from the infant world, more precisely from the collection of deep affective influences. One peculiarity of the group situation when compared to individual psychotherapy is that, in the former, multiple transferences coexist, which group members establish among themselves, enabling a wide range of possible feelings. Both treatment modes share the assumption that unresolved conflicts which stimulated patients to seek for help can be reduced or even abolished through the interpretation and working through of transference, which functions as a process of change throughout the psychotherapy.

Nesta segunda parte é abordado, entre os diversos tópicos, a indicação e o início do tratamento, a variação individual da dose e do intervalo entre as administrações, a freqüência das consultas e estratégias na recaída na vigência do tratamento. Considerando-se que a baixa adesão ao tratamento é um dos fatores principais associados à ocorrência de exacerbação da sintomatologia, que os agentes de nova geração, mesmo com menor freqüência de efeitos colaterais extrapiramidais e melhor tolerabilidade de forma geral, não modificaram esta condição em relação aos convencionais e tendo-se em conta a superioridade dos depot em relação aos compostos convencionais administrados v.o., a formulação de medicamentos de nova geração com ação prolongada certamente poderá favorecer a adesão, a regularidade ao tratamento e a prevenção de recaída em pacientes com esquizofrenia. Ao lado destas observações, é de grande importância a participação da família no tratamento, bem como a atitude e a integração da equipe na execução das diversas tarefas.