title: The craft of bridging.
abstract: The author offers the concept of bridging to integrate a variety of techniques used by group psychotherapists to strengthen the emotional bonds among group members. After documenting the need for therapeutic bridging, and highlighting its principal aims, the author illustrates a number of methods, including open-ended and direct questions, and invitations to group members to elicit more generalized interaction among group participants. In this way, the therapeutic potential of the group can be optimized.
authors.affiliation: Center for the Advancement of Group Studies, Gordon Derner Institute for Advanced Psychotherapy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ormont
mesh_terms: D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D004644:Emotions; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group / Q000379:methods*