A support group for inpatient abused adolescents.

This article describes a support group of two years' duration for physically, sexually, and emotionally abused adolescents in an inpatient unit at the University of Michigan Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital. Group characteristics, group dynamics, and emotional reactions of the adolescents are discussed. This experience suggests that a support group does not necessarily need a homogeneous membership, as the literature often indicates, to be successful.