Overdue reforms: Group psychotherapy in out-patient medical insurance medical and psychological care

On the basis of the balancing statistics of the German Association of Medical Insurance Physicians from the years 1993 to 1995 the author shows that the group psychotherapeutic services have dropped in total and also in comparison with individual psychotherapy. Significant for the drop are stated as being system-immanent reasons resulting from the development of fees and the psychotherapy guidelines. The analyses of the legal and political backgrounds and connections of these developments lead to the demand that in a future version of the psychotherapy guidelines group psychotherapy be listed as an independent form of treatment.