Notes 1986 as marking the 50th birthday of group therapy and briefly reviews the history of group therapy beginning with the first group therapy session conducted by Paul Schilder in the 1930s. (NB)

This study empirically tested the efficacy of group assertive training and group psychotherapy in alleviating depression among Cleveland Job Core Center for Women students. The two therapeutic methods were tested by assigning the "depressed" students to a psychotherapy group, an assertive training group, and a no-treatment control group. (Author)

Administered questionnaire to 40 psychodrama participants and 42 controls with no psychotherapy experience to assess which specific events they would find helpful in psychotherapy. Psychodrama participants perceived emotional abreaction and cognitive insight most helpful while controls considered nonspecific healing aids most helpful. Suggests…

Presents the development of concrete and explicit goals, models, and procedures for group psychotherapy by the staff of a 22-bed, adult, general psychiatric unit. (BH)

Interpersonal feedback is an important component of most group therapy approaches. This review identifies feedback as a multidimensional rather than a unidimensional construct. The literature is reviewed in terms of acceptance of feedback, effects of receiving feedback, willingness to deliver feedback, and therapeutic effects of delivering…

Different approaches to group therapy can be conceptualized as a continuum made up of possible group goals clustered around three points, i.e., therapy in, with, and of the group. For each point, the goal, pathology, focus/content, communication patterns, therapist's/patient's roles, and optimal size are delineated. (HLM)

Explores use of metaphoric and symbolic imagery to clarify and work through group dynamics. With an eye toward tying imagery interventions to a therapeutic rationale, various levels of group intervention (individual, interpersonal, and group-as-a-whole) are discussed and therapeutic goals at each level specified. Clinical vignettes explicate how…

Findings indicate that it is both feasible and important to draw a distinction between high- and low-risk self-revelation in group psychotherapy. Vulnerability of members appears to be perceived as a function of the amount and quality of their own self-disclosing utterances. Institutionalized patients may be less capable of appropriate…

Presents a particular model for viewing co-therapy issues which takes a single-mindedly psychological view of therapy group phenomena. (Author)

Rated selected sessions of two long-term psychotherapy groups (N=143) using Gottschalk-Gleser anxiety and hostility verbal content analysis scales. Found group judged to be clinically more successful demonstrated prolonged periods in various states and that affect dimensions of states were consistent with group developmental stage hypothesis…

Yalom's Q-sort questionnaire was administered to 13 groups and then item analized. Factor analysis identified seven major "curative" factors. Analysis of variance and correlation techniques showed that part of the variation in curative factor perception is related to characteristics of groups and/or their participants. (SE)

Describes a Los Angeles training program in group psychotherapy conducted on-site at the psychotherapist trainees' mental health agencies. Concludes the community outreach training program is successful because it changed the concept of responsibility for training from individual therapist to the agencies and enhanced the quality of group therapy…

Addresses the characteristics and boundaries of a professionally led support group and how it differs from a self-help group and group psychotherapy. Points out that core differences among the three types of groups tend to revolve around membership screening and interactions, goals, dynamics of change, and leadership strategies. (LLL)

Investigated an ongoing therapy group over a six-month period to see if cohesiveness developed differently during various stages. Subjects were psychiatric outpatients (N=5). Questionnaire results showed cohesiveness continued to increase before reaching a plateau and decreasing, but the loss was not significant. (JAC)

Describes group psychotherapy at an inpatient, psychiatric hospital serving priests, nuns, and religious brothers. Discusses formation of and differences among four groups: a low-level group for sisters; an interactional group for sisters; a high-level, Gestalt-oriented group for sisters; and an interactional group for priests and brothers. (ABL)