When You Don't Know Where to Turn / A Self-Diagnosing Guide to Counseling and Therapy

by Steven J. Bartlett

* They often feel more at ease in a group. They feel less fear or intimidation in the presence of the authority figure the therapist represents.

* They may benefit from the experiences of other group members who have similar problems or who have very different kinds of difficulties. Knowing that they are not troubled minorities of one can be a comfort; knowing that other people have problems in areas where they don't can be reassuring.

In general, group therapy can give you insight provided by the thoughts and perceptions of others; it can help you develop social ties if you feel isolated; and it can offer group support if you need emotional bolstering in order to cope with difficult situations, undertake decisions that may frighten you, and face more calmly and confidently the many challenges life can present. But it can also help you deal with more specific problems, such as facing an especially stressful situation—the death of someone very close to you, divorce or separation, serious illness, unemployment, drug addiction, or alcoholism. Or perhaps you have problems relating to others, such as having a history of being fired from job after job despite your efforts to hold them. For that matter, group therapy can even offer information about job opportunities, how to develop occupational skills, how to apply for a job, and how to keep a position you hold.

Some psychologists have commented that the popularity and the need for the kind of experience that group therapy offers are due to the decline of community life and to the virtual disappearance of extended families living physically and emotionally close to one another.

Group therapy is offered in private practice, in hospitals, and in halfway houses; in psychiatric and counseling centers, in clinics and hospital wards for patients with diabetes, AIDS, epilepsy, arthritis, heart conditions, paralysis, blindness; in prisons and juvenile detention centers; and in schools, for students with behavior problems and truancy. Group therapy is often used for marriage, family, and child-guidance counseling and to help families in which a member is physically or emotionally disabled. Group therapy is used by churches for family guidance and for spiritual counseling. It is used in virtually any area where people share problems: victims of crime and physical abuse, former patients, the aged, children of the aged, those who are discriminated against—the list goes on.

So, group therapy cuts across virtually the whole range of human problems. Because it is used in so many areas, it is impossible to define it as a single approach—many distinct approaches actually may be involved.

Many of the approaches to psychotherapy we have already looked at are used in groups. There are psychoanalytically oriented groups, Adlerian groups, Gestalt groups, groups that use behavior modification, and others. Perhaps the most useful way to understand group therapy is to liken it to education. Many sorts of things can be taught, and many can be learned. Group therapy may be understood most clearly in relation to what kinds of learning and teaching really go on in it.

Since group approaches to problem solving include many applications beyond our scope here—in industry, religion, schools, etc.—we will look more closely at the following forms of group therapy that are used in the context of psychotherapy: brief group psychotherapy, T-groups, human potential groups, self-help groups, and the use of specialized approaches to psychotherapy in a group setting. (Marriage and family therapy, which are special forms of group therapy, are of interest to a large number of people, so they are discussed separately, in Chapter 14.)

BRIEF GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY

Also known as short-term encounter groups, brief group psychotherapy is intended for people who face life crises, who are motivated to change, and who are comparatively free of individual emotional disorders. Normally, there are about ten sessions. People who find short-term group therapy useful generally have well-defined problems to solve. Their experience in group therapy encourages them to become involved in new activities, join clubs, perhaps do volunteer work after being recently widowed, divorced, or separated; to take specific steps to find employment; or to practice new ways of behaving—to become more assertive, to implement a weight-loss plan, to return to school after raising a family, or to change careers.