The goal of this experiment was to determine whether group rational emotive therapy would prove superior to usual group therapy in improving the psychological functioning of male alcoholics in an inpatient treatment facility and to determine if memory dysfunction would impede therapeutic progress. Four areas of psychological functioning were discussed for their relevance to etiology, recidivism, and treatment evaluation; they were depression, self-conception, social anxiety, and cognitive functioning. Further, rational emotive therapy as a potentially superior treatment for alcoholism was discussed and outcome research was reviewed.

A central goal of group-based psychotherapy is for participants to gain insight into how they perceive others and how others perceive them. However, such interpersonal perceptions are challenging to study because any given perception could be a function of the perceiver (some people see everyone as friendly), the target (some people are seen as friendly by everyone), or both. The present article provides an introduction and brief tutorial for how the social relations model (SRM) can be applied to studying such interpersonal perceptions within psychotherapy groups. The SRM is a theoretical and statistical model for understanding the possible sources of dyadic perceptions and behaviors. Specifically, any interpersonal perception within a group can be partitioned into variance due to the person making the rating (perceiver effect), the target of the rating (target effect), the relationship between perceiver and target (relationship effect), and the group as a whole. Research on group psychotherapy is especially amenable to a SRM analysis because the interpersonal context allows multiple perceivers to rate multiple targets, which is a requirement of any SRM analysis. A fictitious study of wilderness therapy is used to highlight the conceptual, methodological, and statistical issues that are addressed with the SRM. Supplementary data and output files are provided to elucidate the analytic process using the WinSoReMo software. Although there are multiple ways that SRM studies and analyses can be conducted, the Win- SoReMo program is specifically designed for round-robin data in which group members rate, and are rated by, other group members.

This present study examined the session-by-session content of group therapy for eating-disordered clients. The main objective of this study was to identify how therapist-client gender match affects group therapy process , regarding the disclosure of important issues relevant to eating-disordered clients. It was hypothesized that the group therapy process for eating-disordered clients would be qualitatively different if therapy was facilitated by a female as opposed to a male therapist. The evaluation of the research question required using an alternating treatments single-subject research design, in which the presentation of treatment conditions was counterbalanced across two therapy groups. The treatments consisted of three therapist conditions (i.e., male therapist only, female therapist-only, or both therapists) that were systematically presented during the study. All group-therapy sessions were videotaped and coded for verbal content. The results suggested that when a female therapist alone was leading group therapy sessions, eating-disordered clients were more inclined to discuss general emotional issues and specific issues involving negative affect. Furthermore, during the male therapist-only conditions, there was a tendency for female group members to talk more about the physical symptoms of eating disorders (i.e., food-related behaviors, body image issues). The relationship of these results regarding their practical implications on therapist knowledge, training, in-session behavior was discussed.

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no / Quality of life in patients with vitiligo is impaired. This study explored the immediate effect of 20 days of climato­therapy at the Dead Sea on quality of life, coping with the disease, general well-being and individual stress levels in a group of 71 patients with vitiligo and 42 matched controls. The long-term effect was assessed after 12 months in 33/71 patients and 12/42 controls. Study instruments were Dermatology Life Quality Index, Beck Depression Inventory and the Adjustment to Chronic Skin Disorders Questionnaire. Stress measurements were based on cortisol and β-endorphin concentrations in saliva samples. Quality of life was significantly improved at day 20 at the Dead Sea compared with day 1, and this was still significant after 12 months. Moreover, social anxiety/avoidance, anxious-depressive mood and helplessness as measured by the Adjustment to Chronic Skin Disorders Questionnaire were significantly reduced. There was no difference in levels of cortisol and β-endorphin between patients and controls, indicating that stress per se is not a significant contributor in vitiligo. In conclusion, therapy in patient groups offers an effective tool for long-lasting improvement in quality of life and patients’ well-being.

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Opioid abuse and opioid related deaths continue to affect families and communities across the United States. Medication-assisted treatment shows advantages over other types of interventions for opioid use disorder (OUD) (Bart, 2012). While buprenorphine, an approved medication for the treatment of OUD, has a wide research base to support its efficacy, there is little research or guidance on behavioral interventions to use in conjunction with the medication. Investigating clients' experiences in treatment can provide helpful and necessary information for improving treatment efforts. The following qualitative study used a phenomenological approach to explore the client experience of group therapy with buprenorphine for OUD. Results showed the importance of supportive, genuine relationships in recovery, as well as the need for accountability and a safe space for self-disclosure. This research highlights the importance of the therapeutic alliance, the 11 therapeutic factors of groups, and the necessity of building authentic relationships in treatment. / Doctor of Philosophy / As opioid overdoses continue to rise in the United States, it is essential that we improve addiction treatment. Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) combines the use of medications and counseling to treat the whole person. This type of approach shows advantages over counseling only interventions for opioid use disorder (OUD) (Bart, 2012). While MAT shows promise over counseling only approaches, there is little research or guidance on how to implement counseling with the medication. Investigating clients’ experiences in treatment can provide helpful and necessary information for improving counseling in MAT. The following qualitative study used in-depth interviews with participants who are currently in a MAT program to better understand their experiences in treatment. Results showed the importance of supportive, genuine relationships in recovery, as well as the need for accountability and a safe space for sharing. This research helps further knowledge of treatment for OUD to better serve those affected by addiction, as well as adding to the gaps in group therapy and addiction’s literature.

The purpose of this project was two-fold. First the intent was to learn about the strengths of caregivers and bring the more latent view of caregivers as "strengthed" rather than stressed to the forefront. Second, the study explored the usefulness of applying a competency-based therapy approach to caregiver issues and experiences. Specifically, twelve caregivers of adults were self-referred and participated in a weekly group over the course of a six week time frame. The study addressed a gap of a strength discourse in the literature on adult caregivers, and also provides important information about the breadth of the applicability of a competency-based therapy approach with older adults in a group setting. A qualitative research design was employed, the approaches of ethnography and action research were the specific types of qualitative methods for this project. An analysis was performed of qualitative data that consisted of transcripts of fieldnotes and audiotaped focus group interviews. Six major themes that emerged from the analysis of the data included: self-care, guidance, togetherness, separation, relationship with family members, and caregivers as experts. These themes are discussed as they relate to caregiver strengths. Suggestions for future research and for clinical practice are considered in conjunction with the need to provide valuable information about family enrichment with caregivers, and new interventions that build on a strength discourse. / Ph. D.

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Non-violent resistance group therapy is an innovative way of working with parents whose children are violent and out of control. The programme brings about change on a number of levels, some of which were beyond our expectations. This research aims to both look into the clinical practice and to develop a research method which can do it justice. My aim was to research into those areas which are ‘felt’: beyond the known and the written about. In order to do this I take aspects of the research method portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffmann Davis, 1997) and bring them together with rich description, rich pictures and arts research practices, so as to create a new qualitative inquiry method which I call ‘rich portraiture’. I describe the development of rich portraiture as a research method and show how I applied it to my practice. At the heart of my dissertation is a complex and layered rich portrait which inquires into the particular experiences of the facilitators of and participants in this groupwork programme (Day and Heismann, 2010). Rich portraiture draws on the performative abilities of clinicians: music, poetry, film, quilt making, painting, dance, sculpture, writing. Detailed narrative portraits of participants and facilitators are located in their social and political context and combined with a juxtapositioning of performance and text which moves into that tacit dimension in which we know more than we can tell (Polanyi, 1966). This is ‘performance in use’ (Cho and Trent, 2009, p 1). My preferred performance method is painting. I made artworks which resonated with the lived experiences of the facilitators and parents who participated in the non-violent resistance therapy programme. As additional layers of performance the paintings were shown in venues where they were viewed by audiences at events during which I spoke and showed films of me working. In this thesis I show how participants and facilitators embody the principles of non-violent resistance and how they perform them in the group. This ‘living’ of non-violent resistance creates change in people’s lives on a number of levels, some of them profound. I argue that there is a gap in the research methods which we use to look at our systemic practice. We constantly seek to creatively enhance our clinical practice so we should also be exploring emerging embodied and performative research practices. This would reflect the shift, in our therapeutic work with clients, towards embodiment (Shotter, 2010), the corporeal (Sheets-Johnstone, 2009) affective or performance turn (Denzin, 2003, 2006). My thesis both describes clinical practice in detail and sets out a new research method.