Peripatetic Group Therapy: Considerations

Peripatetic therapy is the unfolding of a tradition of ambulant therapeutic work in mental health initiated in 1969/1970, in Argentina and Brazil, as part of the Psychiatric Reform. This professional, dedicated to chronic patients, was initially appointed as a “psychiatric assistant”. With influences from psychoanalysis and other theories of psychology, he adopted the name of “qualified friend” and, later, “therapeutic accompaniment”, as new ways of defining and naming this unusual work carried out in support of psychiatrists and psychologists.