The psychotic or bipolar client
Many groups are designed specifically to work with clients with significant Axis I disturbance. In fact, when one considers groups on psychiatric wards, partial hospitalization units, veterans’ hospitals, and aftercare programs, the total number of therapy groups for severely impaired clients likely outnumbers those for higher-functioning clients. I will discuss groups composed for hospitalized clients in chapter 15 (for more on this topic, see my text inpatient group psychotherapy, basic book,1983) but for now consider the issue of what happens to the course of an interactive therapy group of higher-functioning individuals when one member develops a psychotic illness during treatment.