Group Therapy

Group Therapy
More than simultaneous treatment for
several individuals
Advantages of group therapy:
Economy: group therapy is less expensive
Group support: there is comfort in knowing
that others have similar problems
Feedback: group members learn from each
other
Behavioral rehearsal: group members can
role-play the activities of the key persons in a
members life

Group Therapy
First practiced at the beginning of the 20 th
century by Joseph Pratt in Boston

Worked with tuberculosis patients

Group Therapy
Use stimulated by the shortage of trained
therapists after WWII
Every major model of clinical psychology
offers group therapy
also popular with nonprofessional,
selfhelp organizations (weightcontrol, AA, NA, etc.)

Group Therapy
No consensus as to a uniform process of
group therapy
Most therapists emphasize the importance
of interpersonal relationships and assume
that personal maladjustment involves
difficulties with interpersonal relationships

Yaloms Curative Factors

Common to most, if not all, group therapies

Sharing new information

Instilling hope
Universality
Altruism
Interpersonal learning
Recapitulation of the primary family
Group cohesiveness

The Practice of Group

Therapy
Groups usually consist of 6-12 members
If too small lack of universality and
cohesiveness
If too large mechanical feedback, lack of
sensitivity

The Practice of Group

Therapy
Duration
May be on-going or time-limited
Each session usually lasts longer than
sessions in individual therapy 2 hours is
common

Homogeneity vs.
Heterogeneity
Major issue
Homogeneous membership more direct
focus on shared problems
Heterogeneous groups easier to form,
wider diversity (more like general society)

Marital & Family

Therapy

Marital & Family

Therapy
Marital and family discord are 2 of the
most common problems encountered by
clinical psychologists
Approximately 50% divorce rate
Child abuse, adolescent suicide, runaways,
substance abuse, etc.

Marital Therapy
Often called couples therapy due to
societal changes
The client is the relationship, not the
individuals in that relationship
the goal is to save the relationship

Marital Therapy
MT can be preceded by, followed or
accompanied by individual
psychotherapy for one or both members,
or can stand alone
Individual therapy is indicated when one
member is suffering from a problem
largely unrelated to the relationship

Marital Therapy
The need for couples therapy usually
arises out of the conflicting expectations
and needs of the couple
Common areas of conflict: sexual
satisfaction, personal autonomy,
communication, intimacy, money
management, fidelity, expression of
disagreement/hostility

Marital Therapy

Common theme among marital therapists

emphasis on problem solving: learning to work
together, communication and negotiation
Changing not only the way a couple talks to
each other, but how they think about their
relationship

Decreased fault-finding and blaming

Increasing mutual responsibility
Maintaining a here-and-now focus
Expression of preferences, rather than demands
Negotiating compromises

Family Therapy
Similar to couples therapy, but evolved for
different reasons
A number of therapists noticed that a number
of individuals who made significant
improvements in individual therapy or
institutional treatment often had a relapse
when they returned to their families this led to
an emphasis on the family environment and
parent-child interactions as causes of
maladaptive behavior

Family Therapy
The basic concepts of FT differ from individual therapy
Grounded in systems theory
Circular causality events are inter-related and mutually
dependent
Ecology systems can only be understood as integrated
patterns, not component parts
Subjectivity there are no objective views of events, only
subjective perceptions filtered by the experiences of
perceivers in a system
Homeostasis the tendency of a family to act in ways that
maintain the familys equilibrium or status quo

Family Therapy
The therapeutic focus is on changing interactions
between/among family members with the goal of
improving the functioning of the family or the
functioning of individual members of the family
The focus is initially on one family member the
identified patient or scapegoat (typically an
adolescent, but not always)
The therapist reframes the problem in terms of disturbed
family processes or faulty family communications
Family members are encouraged to see their own
contributions to the familys problems, as well as the positive
changes they can make