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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-7148 |
| Date | 01 May 1995 |
| Creators | Soutor, Todd A. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact digitalcommons@usu.edu. |
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