Comprehensive Exam Review

1
Comprehensive Exam Review
Click the LEFT mouse key ONCE to continue
2
Group Work Part 3
Click the LEFT mouse key ONCE to continue
3
Types of Groups
4

• Task groups to improve or resolve production
  and performance related to work.

Psychoeducation groups to impart information
and skills.
Counseling groups to help members cope and
adapt to problems of living.
Psychotherapy groups to reduce emotional or
psychological dysfunction in members.
5
Similarities of Types

• Leadership is based on same set of core group
  work competencies.

All seek to provide help and reach goals.
All involve member interaction and leader
guidance.
All utilize basic group processes.
6
Differences of Types

• Task groups focus on work performance.

Psychoeducation groups are educational and
usually very structured.
Counseling groups are developmentally-oriented
and seek to improve coping with normal
adjustment issues.
Psychotherapy groups are remediation-oriented and
seek to reduce psychopathology.
7
Task groups are conducted to enhance or resolve
performance and production goals in work groups.
The task group leader functions as a facilitator,
using group collaborative problem solving, team
building, program development consultation,
and/or system change strategies.
8
Group leaders need to understand organizational
dynamics (i.e., how organizations function)
because task groups often occur within
organizations, such as business settings,
schools, religious institutions, and associations.
Understanding community dynamics also is
important for group leaders because task groups
often occur within communities and neighbor-hoods.
9
Political dynamics, such as power and influence
in organizations and communities, are important
for task group leaders to understand because task
groups usually are part of a larger political
system.
Task group leaders frequently use standard group
discussion methods to guide interaction, methods
that often follow a general problem-solving
approach.
10
All ethical principles associated with group work
are relevant to task groups.
Specific considerations are concerned with
maintaining a task/work focus rather than a
personal focus and with keeping a connection
between the work of the task group and the larger
organization of which it is a part.
11
Program development and evaluation know-ledge is
critically important for task group leaders.
Steps in a typical program evaluation plan apply
Define the problem Set the objective Choose among
alternate strategies Prepare for
implementation Design the evaluation Use
evaluative information.
12
Knowledge of consultation principles and
approaches is necessary for task group leaders
because
Consulting often occurs in order to develop task
groups within an organization or community.
Task groups are frequently part of an on-going
organizational consultation project.
Task groups and process consultation are highly
synchronous.
13
The consultation knowledge and skills areas with
which task group leaders should be familiar
include those associated with
14
Consultation knowledge and skills continued
Collaboration Establishing contact and defining
the relationship Selecting a setting and
method of work Data gathering Intervention
(including agenda-setting, observation,
feedback, coaching structural
suggestions, evaluation of results, and
disengagement).
15
The focus on task and work is a distinguishing
feature of task groups.
Leaders collaborate with members to set goals and
agenda and to develop on-going monitoring
procedures to keep the group on task.
Human relations are critical supports in task
groups, but are not the predominant focus.
16
Clear goals are essential to task groups and the
goals should be specific, attainable,
performance-based, measurable, and observable.
Leaders help members to define goals that are
production and performance-based, rather than
related directly to personal change.
17
Task group leaders need to mobilize member energy
and resources to accomplish previously
established goals.
Involving members in goal creation and planning
for goal accomplishment is an important
motivational approach.
Attending to human relations dimensions also
provides a critical source for member energy
mobilization.
18
Task group leaders need to provide
decision-making options clearly and to define
their relative advantages and disadvantages.
Task group leaders need to help members
understand that group life naturally involves
conflict, to teach members how conflict fits
developmentally into group functioning, and to
help members recognize when conflict is obvious
and/or when it is present but not obvious.
19
Effective leaders help members to understand how
positive human relations are essential to task
group success.
Leaders must continually attend to human
processes and human relations because group
members will tend to avoid them in favor of the
task or avoiding the task.
20
Process observation and feedback are crucial
leader skills in task groups.
Process observation should focus on level of
participation, influence, feelings,
decision-making, task maintenance, group climate,
membership, and norms.
Feedback needs to be specific, immediate,
descriptive, behavioral, and presented first,
with a focus on positive elements and always in a
tentative, non-authoritarian manner.
21
Task groups usually are not independent entities,
but part of a larger organizational system.
Therefore, leaders must be sensitive to the
larger organizational and political system.
Task group activities must be kept in balance
with the larger system.
22
Psychoeducation groups feature transmission,
discussion, and integration of factual
information and skill building through the use of
semi-structured exercises and group process.
Psychoeducation groups often are focused on
prevention, which means stopping from happening
or reducing the likelihood that something bad
will happen.
23
Primary prevention is a before-the-fact
intervention intended to reduce incidence or
occurrence of new problems.
Being at risk is an important prevention
concept that means a person is likely to have
something bad happen to him or her.
24
Being at risk exists on a continuum ranging
from low risk potential to high risk potential.
The lower risk levels are associated most closely
with primary prevention. However,
psycho-education groups can be conducted with
people anywhere along the continuum.
25
Psychoeducation groups typically involve
instructing or delivering information to members
and developing skills.
Sessions are designed systematically to
disseminate information clearly (and in an
organized manner) and to build skills.
Links among goals, methods, strategies,
activities, delivery, and evaluation are vital
for effective psychoeducation groups.
26
The psychoeducation group leader needs to be
particularly knowledgeable of the content for the
group.
Research and concepts in the applicable area
(e.g., substance abuse or social problem solving)
need to be mastered and then that mastery drawn
upon appropriately within the group.
27
Psychoeducation group leaders need good skills to
obtain (i.e., select and recruit) members,
particularly when potential group members are at
risk.
Knowledge of epidemiological techniques, social
indicators, demographic profiles, life
transitions, human and system development, and
social marketing can all be helpful.
28
Knowledge of human development over the life
span, augmented by knowledge of human diversity,
contributes strongly to effective psychoeducation
group leadership.
Human development must be understood
ecologically, including knowledge of important
contexts such as environment.
29
Effective application of principles of structure
are fundamental to psychoeducation groups.
Leaders need to know how to design a (at least
semi-) structured group experience from beginning
to ending session.
Leaders also need to know how to structure each
session relative to goals, methods, and roles,
and how to use structured exercises within
sessions.
30
When psychoeducation groups are used for
prevention, the concept of empowerment is
especially important.
Empowerment refers to group members
self-perception that they are capable and in
control, that their life condition is not
whimsical, and that they are powerful shapers of
their own destinies.
31
Special ethical considerations revolve around
privacy issues in psychoeducation groups.
When prospective members currently unaffected by
a disorder (i.e., who are healthy or at low
risk) are recruited, care must be given to not be
invasive of their privacy.
32
Another ethical concern revolves around attending
to unique needs of members.
Psychoeducation groups can easily become
over-structured and unbalanced, resulting in
excessive information delivery.
Except when intended and understood by all,
unique member needs can become ignored through
information overload.
33
Effective leaders know the advantages (e.g., that
they are focused, informative,
skill-development-based, efficient, and have
preventive potential) and disadvantages (e.g.,
that they can minimize group process human
relations or member participation) of
psychoeducation groups.
Leaders develop ideas for a psychoeducation group
from literature reviews and local (needs)
assessments.
34
Topics appropriate for a psychoeducation group
(e.g., transition from middle to high school)
should match the local needs, resources, and
situation.
Psychoeducation group leaders plan their groups
best by including input and/or involvement of
target population members.
Sometimes representative members of the target
population are included in planning the group.
35
Counseling groups are conducted by group
counselors to improve coping with problems of
living by focusing on interpersonal problem
solving, interactive feedback, and support
methods within a here-and-now framework.
Group counselors need to understand the major
personality and counseling theoretical approaches
for group counseling, such as Psychodynamic,
Behavioral, Transpersonal, Cognitive-Behavioral,
and Humanistic.
36
Advantages of group counseling include its
interpersonal orientation, generation of
therapeutic conditions, support, problem-solving,
cost-savings, and development of interpersonal
learning.
Disadvantages of group counseling include
difficulties in organizing groups and obtaining
individual assistance, and threats to
confidentiality.
37
Knowledge of interpersonal dynamics is essential
for group counselors.
The most important interpersonal dynamics in this
regard include
Group processes (e.g., participation levels and
task and maintenance behaviors ). Therapeutic
factors (e.g., instillation of hope and
altruism). Feedback and self-disclosure behaviors.
38
Because counseling groups are most often used to
resolve interpersonal problems, knowledge of
problem-solving steps is important
Identify the problem Set goals Consider and
choose a strategy Implement the strategy Evaluate
the success of the strategy
39
Because group counseling is an interpersonal
activity, effective assessment of interpersonal
phenomena is important.
Capacity to engage with others as well as
interpersonal needs for inclusion, control, and
openness are examples of important inter-personal
dimensions to assess.
40
Group counselors also need to understand when and
how to make referrals and have a referral
resource list from which to draw.
Referral may be necessary during selection or
during the course of the group, such as when the
group topic is not relevant to a potential
members needs or when the level of functioning
needed is beyond skill of group counselor.
41
When forming a counseling group, the counselor
must seek to create a match between the group and
prospective members.
The groups goals and expectations and individual
group members level of func-tioning,
availability, and motivation should be considered
in this matching process.
42
Prospective members of counseling groups may be
obtained through referral from case loads or
through recruitment and marketing.
Counselors should explore goals, level of
functioning, expectations, motivation, and obtain
informed consent during the group formation
process.
43
Group counselors should be able to recognize
self-defeating behaviors of clients during their
participation in the group, and note
relationships between professed goals and actual
behaviors.
Group counselors also should become adept at
observing agreements and discrepancies between
verbal and nonverbal behavior.
44
Group counselors should be able to develop
reasonable hypotheses about the meaning(s) of
nonverbal behavior.
They also should be able to work with nonverbal
behavior and to be sensitive to individual and
cultural differences.
45
Group counselors should be able to conduct
interventions that are consistent and appropriate
with a groups stage of development and with
members developmental progress.
For example, certain leader interventions
appropriate at the Forming stage of a group might
not be appropriate at the Working stage.
46
Counseling groups often experience conflict and
other incidents that might become significant
impediments to the progress of the group.
Counseling groups also may sometimes have members
who behave excessively or inappro-priately.
47
For example, they may be demanding or under the
influence of a substance, or they may monopolize,
withdraw, fight, flirt, walk out, or threaten.
These critical incidents should be anticipated
and responded to by leaders with sensitivity and
skill, capturing the moment to allow the group to
maintain itself and to move ahead.
48
Group counselors should learn how to use major
strategies, techniques, and procedures that are
consistent with their (personal) conceptual
framework and with the group situation.
Such activities might include use of
self-disclosure, feedback, confrontation,
modeling, or skills training.
49
Group counselors should know how to help members
transfer their learning from the group to their
lives outside the group.
Relating group events and experiences to the
real world is very important, including helping
members to integrate and apply learning and to
try out small changes first.
50
Group counselors also can help members generalize
group learning.
Useful techniques in this regard include making
use of assigned homework, viewing videotapes in
the group, role playing, or keeping journals.
51
Co-leadership in a counseling group is a
desirable and often preferred model because it
provides another role model for members, a
support resource for each leader, a built-in
capacity for leader processing, and safety.
Functional co-leadership requires a good initial
match of leaders and maintenance of an open and
sharing working relationship between them.
52
Counseling groups, like other groups, need to be
assessed and evaluated for their on-going and
overall effectiveness.
Leaders can collect relevant data during
sessions, at the end of sessions, or using a
pre-and post-test design.
The data should be used to help the group to
progress and to determine its value to each
member.
53
Psychotherapy groups are conducted by therapists
to reduce psychological and/or emotional
dysfunction through exploration of the
antecedents to current behavior by using
intrapersonal and interpersonal assessment,
diagnosis, interpretation, and connecting
historical material with the present.
Clients with diagnosed or diagnosable
dysfunctions are very suitable for group
psychotherapy.
54
Therefore, for psychotherapy group leaders,
knowledge of abnormal behavior is essential
because members enter the group with varying
levels of dysfunction.
In addition, leaders of psychotherapy groups must
understand not only current abnormal behavior,
but also how abnormal behavior develops.
Therefore, knowledge of psychopathology and its
relationship to normal and abnormal human
development is necessary.
55
Knowing the relationship of personality theory to
group psychotherapy also is important for
psychotherapy group leaders.
Therefore, they must possess a thorough
understanding of human development and
personality development.
56
Leaders of psychotherapy groups also must know
crisis theory and its relationships to helping
and to group psychotherapy.
In psychotherapy groups, crises may arise with
some regularity, but they can provide
oppor-tunities for the leader to promote change.
57
Knowledge of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
(IV) of the American Psychiatric Association is
important for psychotherapy group leaders.
This knowledge is useful to assess prospective
clients in relation to DSM-IV categories and to
integrate assessment data with criteria for group
member selection.
58
Special screening attention needs to be given by
psychotherapy group leaders to selecting group
members who could benefit from group.
Group members included can be those from a wide
spectrum of psychological and emotional
disturbance.
However, those with poor reality contact or
character disorders are not good candidates for
group psychotherapy.
59
Self-defeating behaviors of many unique kinds can
be experienced in psychotherapy groups.
Therefore, leaders need to be able to manage
behaviors that are antagonistic to a members
needs and/or goals, represent an extreme
dysfunction, or heighten liability.
60
Intervening in critical incidents within a
psychotherapy group could involve situations that
are at higher risk than in other forms of group
work.
At times, these critical incidents may include
crises or emergencies that require direct leader
intervention.
61
Disruptive members in psychotherapy groups can
evidence dramatically pronounced expression of
behavior.
These more obvious and extreme disruptions may
require direct (perhaps even physical)
intervention on the part of the leader to manage
the members behavior and the group itself.
62
Hospitalization may sometimes be necessary for a
member of a psychotherapy group, and therefore
leaders must know procedures for instituting
hospitalization, should that be necessary.
Transfer of learning may require increased
support, gradated trials, and repeated attempts
in psychotherapy groups .
63
Assessment procedures for evaluation in
psychotherapy groups may need to be focused more
closely than in other groups on the individuals
accomplishment of gradated goals.
Assessment of psychotherapy group member
contributions is often concerned with modest
gains.
64
This concludes Part 3 of the presentation
on GROUP WORK