Group Counseling

William and Mary- Online

Group

A collection of two or more individuals who meet face to face or virtually in an interactive, interdependent wat, with the awareness that each belongs to the BLANK and for the purpose of achieving mutually agreed-on goals

Activities

Verbal and nonverbal wats members use to communicate with others in the group

Group work

A broad professional practice involving the application of knowledge and skill in group facilitation to assist an interdependent collection of people to reach their mutual goals, which may be intrapersonal, interpersonal, or work related. The goals of the group may include the accomplishment of tasks related to work, education, personal development, personal and interpersonal problem solving, or remediation of mental and emotional disorders

Contact-focused group therapy

The focus of this theory was on the purpose of groups

Specialty/standards model

This model evolved out of the realization that groups differ in their purpose and functioning

TRAC model of groups

Delineates group process and management and the types of specific groups found in each of the four areas

Task/work groups

Promote efficient and effective accomplishment of group tasks among people who are gathered to accomplish group tasks

Group dynamics

The interactions fostered through the relationships of members and leaders in connection with the complexity of the task involved

Team

A group of two or more people who interact dynamically, interdependently, and adaptively and who share at least one common goal or purpose

Psychoeducational groups

Groups originally developed for use in educational settings. They are premised on the idea that education is about changing perceptions as well as acquiring knowledge

Airtime

The amount of time available for participation in the group

Life-skills training

Focuses on helping people identify and correct deficits in their life-coping responses and learn new, appropriate behavior

Counseling groups

Generally considered to be a treatment mode that is equal in effectiveness to individual counseling. They are preventive, growth oriented, and remedial

Adventure groups

Created by Kurt Hahn, this type of group can enhance emotional and physical abilities in clients by having them deal with safe but risk-taking events in the wilderness

Toxic effect

Includes physical and psychic isolation, repeated feelings of loss about client termination, and interpersonal distancing from family and friends who may perceive counselors as interpreting their words and actions

Yearbook feedback

Saying nice, but insignificant things about an individual

Group psychotherapy

Addresses personal and interpersonal problems of living among people who may be experiencing severe and/or chronic maladjustment

Open-ended

Admitting new members at any time

Close-ended

Not admitting new members after the first session

Group-as-a-whole approach

The therapist makes comments directed to the whole group that reflect processes operating in the group in the here and now that seem to be out of the group’s current awareness

Mixed groups

Groups that defy classification because they encompass multiple ways of working with their members and may change their emphasis at different times in the development of the group

Waldo and Bauman’s goal categories

Development, remediation, and adjustment

Development

Forward motion and expansion

Remediation

Overcoming or correcting manifest problems

Adjustment

Assisting members in coping with problems or circumstances that cannot be remediated

Self-help groups

They are either organized by an established, professional helping organization or individual or originate spontaneously and stress their autonomy and internal group resources

Social influence

Emerges in a group that manifests itself by altering actions, attitudes, and feelings

Primary affiliation groups

Those with which people most identify, such as family or peers

Secondary affiliation groups

Those with which people least identify, such as a city or a confederation

Hawthorne effect

Changes in behavior because of observation and manipulation of conditions in an environment

Group content

Information within and purpose of the group

Group process

Interactions and relationships among members of the group

What are Donigian and Malnati’s group processes?

Contagion, conflict, anxiety, consensual validation, universality, family reenactment, and instillation of hope

Contagion

In this process, member behavior elicits interaction

Conflict

Matters involving this process usually revolve around significant issues in people’s lives, such as authority, intimacy, growth, change, autonomy, power, and loss

Anxiety

The intension involved in this process and the uneasy feelings that go with it are universal. To cope with this, two strategies are employed: a restrictive solution or an enabling solution

Consensual validation

This process involves checking your behaviors with a group of others

Universality

The discovery that others in group have similar feelings and/or experiences enables group participants to identify and unify with one another

Family reenactment

Some behaviors by group members are connected to issues they never resolved in childhood

Instillation of hope

Group members are helped to come to terms with their own issues, and thus can come to realize their issues are resolvable

System

A set of elements standing in interaction with one another

Systems theory

Group members are always deciding between their needs for differentiating themselves and integrating with others. From this perspective, group leaders must orchestrate their efforts in helping members and the group as a whole to achieve a balance of individual and collective needs as the group develops

Differentiating themselves

Taking care of their needs to do things by themselves

Integrating with others

Doing things with others

Clarity of purpose

First factor of preplanning, what the group is to accomplish

Group setting

The environment in which group takes place

Subgrouping

In which two or more members develop a group within the group

Heterogenous groups

Those composed of people with dissimilar backgrounds

Homogenous groups

Those centered on a presenting problem or similarity in gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or sociocultural background

Group structure

Refers to both the physical setup of a group and to the interaction of each group member in relation to the group as a whole

Physical structure

The arrangement of group members

Circle format

All members have direct access to one another

Chain

People are positioned or seared along a line, often according to their rank in the group

Wheel

Has a center spoke, the leader, through whom all messages go

Y

Combines the structural elements of the wheel and chain

Theater style

People are seated in lines and rows

Verbal intrapersonal

A low-intensity BLANK exercise would be having group members draw pictures of how they perceive the world and using these pictures to introduce themselves verbally to the group

Verbal interpersonal

An example of this exercise would be having group members divide into small groups discuss their sibling positions. Then the group as whole would reassemble, and members would talk about how they view the world based on past perceptions

Nonverbal intrapersonal

An example of this exercise would body relaxation, where the leader would talk members through relaxing parts of their body starting with the feet and ending with the head. Members’ eyes would be closed the whole time

Nonverbal interpersonal

An example of this activity: members might line up from most to least about any concern that is relevant for the group at the moment, such as anxiety. Members would then get a chance to compare where they stand in regard to others in the group

Group interaction

The way members related to one another

Nonverbal behaviors

Make up more than 50 percent of the messages communicated in social relationships and are usually perceived as more honest and less subject to manipulation than verbal behaviors. These include body behaviors, interaction with the environment, speech, and physical appearance

Sociometry

A phenomenological methodology for investigating interpersonal relationships

Sociogram

A tool of sociometry that plots group interactions

Law of triviality

The time a group spends discussing any issue is in inverse proportion to its consequences

Role

A dynamic structure within an individual which usually comes to life under the influence of social stimuli or defined positions

Facilitative/building role

One that adds to the functioning of a group in a positive and constructive way

Maintenance role

Contributes to the social-emotional bonding of members and the group’s overall well-being

Blocking role

Individuals who take this role act as aggressors, blockers, dominators, recognition seekers, and self-righteous moralists

Role collision

A conflict exists between the role an individual plays in the outside world and the role expected within the group

Role incompatibility

An individual is given a role within the group that they neither want nor are comfortable exercising

Role confusion

Occurs when a group member simply does not know what role to perform

Role transition

An individual is expected to assume a different role as the group progresses but does not feel comfortable doing so

Positive group variables

Variables like member commitment, readiness of members for the group experience, the attractiveness of the group for its members, a feeling of belonging/acceptance/security, and clear communication

Curative (therapeutic) factors within groups

Instillation of hope, universality, imparting of information, altruism, corrective recapitulation of the primary family group, development of socializing techniques, imitative behavior, interpersonal learning, cohesiveness, catharsis, existential factors

Negative group variables

Avoiding conflict, abdicating group responsibilities, anesthetizing to contradictions within the group, and becoming narcissistic

Processing

Refers to an activity that helps group members and the group identify, examine, and reflect on their behaviors and what occurred in a group in order to increase understanding, integrate knowledge, extract meaning, and improve their functioning and outcomes

PARS Model

Processing: Activity, Relationship, Self