Medication dynamics in group psychotherapy

The use of medications in insight-oriented groups has not been adequately investigated. We report a group in which the anxiolytic buspirone appeared to be associated with attractiveness to the group in the face of impending therapists' termination. We feel that in this group, medications became a variable associated with group cohesiveness, served as a vehicle for the expression of group dynamics, and as an indicator of regression within the group. These observations suggest that, under certain circumstances, medications may become an important variable in the process and expression of group dynamics.They would like to thank Myron Pisetsky, M.D., for reading the original draft of this paper, and are also indebted to Daniel O'Neil, Ph.D., for his input.