Molnos, A. (1998): A psychotherapist's harvest

MARATHON GROUPS

Marathon groups use a group technique in which people meet for an unusually long period of time ranging roughly anywhere from 6 to 48 hours. An intense emotional atmosphere is created, defences are cut through, feelings and impulses are reached which are inaccessible with other more conventional methods. However, the method has two major drawbacks. First, it can be easily abused by irresponsible therapists who use it to deal with their own unresolved problems. Second, in cases when marathon groups produce positive therapeutic effects in participants, such effects seem to be only short lived. (Wolberg, 1977, 721-724). The explanation lies in the condition required to achieve lasting psychic change. Breaking through the defences is important, but only a first step. It has to be followed by the individual or the group-as-a-whole working through the maladaptive patterns, making the right links and finding new ways of relating, thinking and being. In short, marathon groups can help to achieve the first step. In order to be therapeutically effective they have to be followed up by therapeutic working through.

See also index: FEELING, GROUP-ANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY, PSYCHODRAMA, THOUGHT