INTRODUCTION: The relative is the bridge between the patient's home environment and the therapeutic environment of the day-hospital (DH). The difficulties for the relative to play this task gave birth to the multi-family support group therapy (SGR). To describe the features, leadership and Yalom's therapeutic factors in the SGR is the aim of this paper. METHOD: The SGR is an open group that last for one hour and 15 minutes, meets once weekly with the coordination, by cotherapy, of a group psychotherapist and a chief psychiatric nurse. The data was gathered from 20 groups, by cotherapists and observer, at the end of each session for 20-30 minutes, and by content analysis of the same 20 transcribed successive sessions. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The presence by participants was more than 80%. It is a group with prevailing frequency of women, mainly mothers. The leadership gave some structure to the SGR to get results faster in the short-term of 4 to 6 sessions. The Yalom's therapeutic factor of Cohesion showed up when difficult situations in the SGR struck everybody, at the same time, obeying the relatives to generate a sense of union and to find common solutions among them in the group. CONCLUSIONS: The adherence of the relatives in SGR influenced positively the treatment of the patients in DH. Women mostly mothers were the most important frequency.
Multi-family support group therapy; day hospital; Yalom's therapeutic factors; psychoeducation; group psychotherapy