Mini-groups: maximizing the therapeutic milieu on an acute psychiatric unit.

The authors have found small groups (called mini-groups) an effective way to work with patients who are too regressed or disturbed to benefit from individual psychotherapy and who find larger groups overwhelming and confusing. Mini-groups were formed in 1974 on a 20-bed acute inpatient service of a private psychiatric hospital, where traditional treatment approaches have been altered because of a more disturbed patient population and a shorter length of stay. A high staff-to-patient ratio, sometimes almost one to one, lends stability to the groups.