The group- dynamic view of any human development and change, both of the individual as well as of a group, is one central premise of Günter Ammon's Dynamic Psychiatry. This understanding postulates that any human being- from birth on- experiences consciously and unconsciously innumerable contacts, expectations, desires, conflicts and interactions in many different groups. Those experiences are substantially moulding a person and his/her personality with its intellectual, psychological, and physical dimensions, including the processes of brain development.

The earliest, internalized group- dynamic experiences in particular are having a determining influence in shaping significantly a person's later life. Such archaic group- dynamic traumata, which often lead to pathological developments, are then acted out through an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This is the starting point for a variety of different psychotherapeutic interventions with the intention to initiate processes of recovery through emotional correcting inter-human experiences and psycho-dynamic working on internalised conflicts.

Against the background of more than forty years of clinical in- and out-patient experience with empirical validation of treatment results, the author's objective is to discuss the importance of such a group-dynamic oriented Dynamic Psychiatry for the treatment of severe mental illnesses.

The aim is furthermore, to demonstrate the contribution Dynamic Psychiatry can provide to a spectrum of various and diverse psychiatric approaches.