The Heidelberg Institute of Group Analysis – A Success Story

Last year we celebrated the 40^th birthday of the Institute of Group Analysis, Heidelberg/Germany (IGA Heidelberg). However, the first training started already in 1980 in London with Ilse Seglow, a German-Jewish refugee from Germany and close colleague of Foulkes. It was the first block training at the time and laid out for four years of therapy and theory with four one-week blocks per year. Ten candidates started and finished together in the same group in 1984 (Rohr and Cogoy 2024). At the time controversial debates took place in the group analytic community in London, questioning the validity, solidity and psychotherapeutic efficiency of block trainings. Reality and practicality won, since there was no other possibility to establish a group analytic training outside of Great Britain. Of course, it was also a matter of persuasion and assertiveness, and Ilse Seglow left no doubt that her initiative to create the first German institute would be realized, no matter what other group analysts from IGA London would think or say.

Since 1980 the institute has grown, even flourished and has managed to survive, in spite of serious crises and financial difficulties that hit the institute at times in the past.

A look inside  

Throughout the last years candidate’s professional background has changed dramatically. The IGA Heidelberg had acquired from the beginning on a high reputation to except candidates from different and not only medical or psychological backgrounds. In fact, this was one of the reasons, why the institute was so attractive for many professionals.  However, today the courses are filled mostly with medical and psychological professionals seeking group analytic qualifications. At the same time, professionals from other professional areas, like social workers, sociologists, theologians, anthropologists and educational scientists have diminished in numbers.

This was one major reason, why the Management Committee (MC) on initiative of the membership decided to conceptualize a completely different set of trainings.

Today there are three different training opportunities:

1: Group Analysis for adult groups

2. Group Analysis for child- and youth psychotherapists
3. Group Analytic supervision and organisational consultancy

The demands for each of these trainings have grown so much that they almost exceed our capacities.

Just to give a more precise insight:

We have 91 members in the institute, many of them active in the above mentioned different training formats as interviewers, group analysts, conductors of theory courses, supervisors and examiners.

Today there are 121 candidates participating in one of these training courses, 17 candidates are waiting for acceptance.

There a five continuously running group analytic training groups, slow open each with 10 candidates. There is the possibility to participate in a closed group analytic group for one year, also with 10 candidates. There is an advanced theory course with 10 participants, a basic course in group analysis with 12 candidates, two basic courses for child- and youth-psychotherapists, altogether with 22 candidates, a compact group analytic course with 10 and finally a newly started group analytic supervisory and organisational consultancy course with 14 participants.

All these groups take place several times a year, in block form, for a longer weekend, between 3- 5 days. People stay in one training group as long as they decide (usually to a max of 5 years), then participate in different theory courses, so that not the same people, who have been in a group analytic training group are together in the same theory course. However, this can’t be avoided all together, so that there are always people in theory, who know each other from the therapeutic groups. Some of the candidates, who finished the group analytic training, start then in the supervisory and consultancy courses, to gain additional qualifications.

One of many other issues the institute has to struggle with right now, are radical reforms in our state health system, especially concerning the sector of psychotherapy. What is very special in Germany is that psychotherapy in its different methodological variations (psychoanalytic, behavioural, systemic, in-depth psychology and group therapy) is covered up to a certain degree by our health insurance policies. For groups this means, that you can stay up to 80 sessions in a weekly psychotherapy group, and the insurance company will pay for the therapy. If you are additionally a psychoanalyst, you can treat patients for up to 150 sessions in groups and the insurance will pay. Increasingly insurance companies will even pay in some cases for individual therapy, parallel to participating in a group therapy. As a precondition it is necessary to write up a thorough psychological expertise, before a patient is accepted in individual or group psychotherapy. For that reason, there are five probatory sessions, paid by the insurance company without a psychological expertise to find out, if the patient can be accepted for treatment.

Psychologists and medical doctors thus have secure and high incomes; they rarely have to ask for private payments of their patients. This of course creates a very special situation, shapes the professional relationship and produces considerable challenges, however it allows people, who could not effort a privately paid therapy to benefit from this system and receive psychotherapeutic support.

The sharp increase of candidates in the IGA Heidelberg has a lot to do with the last radical reform of the state health system, especially concerning psychotherapeutic services. It is now possible for psychologists to study a bachelor’s in psychology and then enter in a Master for psychotherapy.  This newly created possibility has filled the psychology departments in the universities above their limits, but has not yet affected the psychotherapeutic training institutes, because the first cohort of students has not finished yet.  Since the demands for psychotherapy have grown tremendously in the last years, group analysis is one way to answer the growing demand and to offer groups besides individual therapy. And, not to forget, groups are extremely well paid, something like 75.-€ per person, per 90min session. However, in 2-3 years the first university psychotherapist graduates will enter into the market,  and they are obliged now per law to acquire group therapeutic qualifications: at least 60 sessions group therapy and 30 sessions supervision. This will revolutionize the psychotherapeutic market and therefore all actual psychotherapists try to improve their qualifications in order to survive in their profession in the future. Since the universities do not offer individual or group therapy or any type of clinical practice, future psychotherapists are going to look for group training in one of the  existing group therapeutic institutes. Medical doctors need now only 40 sessions of group therapy to gain the chance to officially work as group therapists and to get paid for their psychotherapy services by the health system.

What is new and very special about the IGA Heidelberg is that it does not focus alone on the traditional group analytic training for adults, but offers group analytic training for practising child- and youth-psychotherapists in order for them to work in groups with children and young people.

Additionally, a group analytic training for people interested in supervision and organisational consultancy started. This is especially interesting for non-clinical professionals, like sociologists, social workers etc.

In all these block courses candidates will receive sound group analytic therapy and theory and are requested to organise on their own supervisory support for their own patient or client groups.

The organisational background

Up until today all these trainings were organised and coordinated with the help of a highly efficient part time secretary, the management committee and a few board members taking care of the curriculum, choosing conductors for the group analytic training courses and the theory. One other group of board members is involved in choosing and interviewing the candidates and supervising the final exam procedure. Candidates have to show that they are able to run a group analytic group for 80 sessions under supervision and write a 20-page report about the process in their group. In variations this is also true for the other courses.

The voluntary engagement of the management committee and the board members, all with little renumeration, clashes meanwhile with the sheer number of candidates and the number of courses so that it exceeds the capacity of the MC and all other involved members. Therefore, the MC has called upon the members to think about possible changes and developments concerning the structure and organisation of the institute. The MC is highly respected, even admired for their incessant involvement in the organisation of the institute. Their management decisions are transparent and openly discussed during the yearly General Meetings.

To stabilize the institute during the pandemic, members took the initiative to establish an online reflective membership group, run by different members and offered every two weeks. This group has been working now for almost 5 years. Members, many of them older members, come here to discuss institute matters and to stay in contact and to sometimes exchange and talk about professional worries and experiences.

Apart from this online group, there are small conferences once a year to discuss training matters and group analytic issues and large groups before and after the General meeting.

Of course, there were also difficult times in the past, conflicts and heated debates between the management committee and the membership, but we seem to have overcome them steadily and today, the institute is a highly admired place to come and meet.

With the new challenge to think about the organisational future of a growing institute with changing types of candidates, a new phase in the life of the institute has started already and this will not be easy to manage. What helps is the trust of the MC in the membership and its desire to allow as much participation of members as possible. The Mc called upon the membership to organise a group in order to think about the future and organise this on their own. About 20 people have agreed to work in this membership group. A budget has been offered by the MC to look for an organisational consultant to accompany this change process and to help find sustainable new structures for the future.

It would be interesting to hear, how other training institutes in Europe manage the challenges of the present and the future.