GroupPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/grp.2023.0003
K. Isaac, Christine Schmidt
{"title":"\"Let’s Pivot\": Co-leading Organizational Group Therapy in a Nonprofit Setting","authors":"K. Isaac, Christine Schmidt","doi":"10.1353/grp.2023.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The increase in racialized violence against Black, Asian, and other People of Color was concurrent with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The national Black Lives Matter protests that coalesced after the murder of George Floyd resulted in demands for racial literacy consultation and group support for companies across the United States. Traditionally, diversity, equity, and inclusion organizational consultants have focused on didactic approaches and consciousness raising. What is the best response when a significant rupture has occurred across racial lines that affects the experience of community within a workplace? This article examines group principles that informed the process of co-leading a multisession combined didactic and therapeutic racial literacy group. In collaboration with corporate leaders, an intentional, group therapeutic approach was taken, which focused on interpersonal dynamics and behavior change to address systemic racism. It was developed to facilitate healing for all staff in a nonprofit organization. Centering group principles of leader transparency, establishing group agreements, intentionality, and racial sensitivity, the authors collaborated and made several key decisions that created a learning and healing environment for group members. The authors examine their assumptions, modifications, missteps, and successes in a group process that occurred over a six-month period. This article also provides insights and recommendations for group leaders who wish to provide group therapy and consultation in traditionally nontherapeutic spaces.","PeriodicalId":90511,"journal":{"name":"Group","volume":"29 1","pages":"15 - 28"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90566088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GroupPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/grp.2023.0009
A. Smolar
{"title":"How Group Identifications Have Contributed to Our National Discord","authors":"A. Smolar","doi":"10.1353/grp.2023.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this article, the author first describes the role of group identifications during individual development. These include the direct familial experience and accumulated experiences in the public sphere, the introjections of adults’ prior group experiences, and the large-group experience of those in an individual’s immediate world. Next, the author identifies recent environmental changes that have altered the pathways for group internalizations. He then identifies pressures impinging on large groups, the mechanisms by which these groups regress, and the type of leader who sometimes emerges in this context. In America, Donald Trump became that leader, and he added to the division between individuals by voicing demeaning attitudes toward immigrants and Black Americans, expressing confusing messages about the COVID-19 pandemic, and promoting the idea that he won the 2020 election. The author hypothesizes that group attachment security stemming from familial experience predicts vulnerability to later extremist large-group recruitment. He describes Ashli Babbitt and her participation in Trump’s large group as such an example. Finally, the author considers corrective options given our current large-group conflict.","PeriodicalId":90511,"journal":{"name":"Group","volume":"20 1","pages":"115 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80861304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GroupPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/grp.2023.0006
Francine R. Mendelowitz
{"title":"Using Applied Theater to Promote Social-Emotional Health in Adolescents","authors":"Francine R. Mendelowitz","doi":"10.1353/grp.2023.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Applied theater offers an innovative blend of art, psychoeducation, and nontraditional therapeutic group facilitation to activate social-emotional learning. Through theater-based programming, groups become engaged, identify with characters, and participate in stimulating discussions related to emotionally charged topics. One applied theater organization, InterACT New York, uses trained actors to enact improvised scenarios for groups of adolescents. The scenarios cover sensitive topics relevant to the everyday issues facing today’s youths, such as bullying, cyberbullying, prejudice, racism, sexual assault, anxiety, self-harm, and depression. After each scenario, group participants interact with the actors by asking questions, making comments, and proposing solutions related to enacted scenes. Actors respond while remaining in character, and with the aid of a trained social work facilitator, illuminating group discussions ensue. This article describes the positive prosocial responses of adolescents engaged in an applied theater program focused on cyberbullying. It highlights one online group experience involving InterACT New York and a diverse group of suburban middle school students.","PeriodicalId":90511,"journal":{"name":"Group","volume":"24 1","pages":"53 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87841672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GroupPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/grp.2023.0004
Brenda Boatswain
{"title":"Addressing Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Nurses: A Brief Unit-Based Group Program","authors":"Brenda Boatswain","doi":"10.1353/grp.2023.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The nursing profession requires constant adaptation to change, along with resilience and unwavering provision of excellent patient care. Secondary traumatic stress (STS) challenges this adaptive process and provision of patient care, leaving nurses with impairment in several well-being domains critical to resilience, including emotional, physical, spiritual, and professional well-being. STS is described as experiencing a patient’s trauma, resulting in a form of posttraumatic stress disorder with hyperarousal, avoidance, sleep disturbance, intrusive thoughts, mood disturbance, and impaired performance. Currently there is a nationwide paradigm shift among national and state nursing associations about how to address stress in nursing and support the well-being of nursing professionals. However, many nurses often do not recognize the signs of stress in themselves or colleagues, and they tend not to utilize strategies for prevention or intervention. Also, it is difficult for busy nursing professionals providing direct patient care to leave their units to engage in stress management programs offered by their institutions. This article addresses this gap and presents a short-term, four-session unit-based group model that integrates cognitive behavioral strategies and mindfulness practice for stress reduction, which has been implemented at a large, busy, urban academic medical center in the Northeast. The short-term unit-based group model aims to assist nursing professionals with recognition, prevention, and mitigation of stress. Such an intervention supports the emotional well-being of nursing professionals, which in turn contributes to a resilient and engaged workforce, a high-functioning team, and improved patient care.","PeriodicalId":90511,"journal":{"name":"Group","volume":"66 1","pages":"29 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84048207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GroupPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/grp.2023.0008
Hang Ruan, Ian Pocock, Howard Ruan
{"title":"“You Just Have to Stick With the Practice”: A Long-Term Weekly Mindfulness Group at the VA","authors":"Hang Ruan, Ian Pocock, Howard Ruan","doi":"10.1353/grp.2023.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) proliferate in today’s health care landscape. Most prominent MBIs teach mindfulness technique through protocols structured in time-limited treatment packages, though the arc of mindfulness practice as “a lifetime’s engagement” is much longer than the typical MBI length of eight weeks. Although studies have shown that MBIs can be efficacious in addressing a wide range of health concerns, sustaining routine meditation practice long-term can be difficult, and treatment gains can fade if routine practice is not maintained. This article discusses long-term weekly mindfulness groups, a unique mindfulness treatment modality that emphasizes ongoing training and support for developing and sustaining routine mindfulness practice, that have been in continuous operation for more than 10 years at a large Veterans Affairs hospital. The protocol utilized for these mindfulness groups is described in this article. Fundamentals of mindfulness and common challenges, such as issues of avoidance, grasping, and dissociation, are articulated as guidelines for the therapist’s facilitation of the group process and individual members’ practice routines.","PeriodicalId":90511,"journal":{"name":"Group","volume":"5 1","pages":"114 - 91"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85793810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GroupPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/grp.2023.0005
S. Grover
{"title":"Conducting On-Site, Single-Session Parent Support Groups","authors":"S. Grover","doi":"10.1353/grp.2023.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Parenting is a lonely battle that frequently overwhelms parents and creates a breeding ground for isolation, anxiety, or depression. On-site parent support groups provide the emotional support and community that parents crave. This article identifies how group techniques developed by group pioneer Louis Ormont can be applied to conducting compelling and inspiring on-site parent support groups. These techniques include contracting, bridging, emotional communication, and emotional education.","PeriodicalId":90511,"journal":{"name":"Group","volume":"34 1","pages":"43 - 51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82730878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GroupPub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.1353/grp.2023.0007
Melisa Stevanovic, Henri Nevalainen, Miira Niska, Elina Weiste
{"title":"Power Differentials in the Counseling Relationship: A Conversation Analytic Study on Goal-Setting Meetings in a Clubhouse Mental Health Rehabilitation Community","authors":"Melisa Stevanovic, Henri Nevalainen, Miira Niska, Elina Weiste","doi":"10.1353/grp.2023.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:We used conversation analysis to examine social support in a Clubhouse mental health rehabilitation community. We focused on goal-setting meetings, which is a very specific equality-promoting group counseling setting in which professionals and clients provide peer support to each other. We asked how the professionals commented on the clients’ goals and presented their own goals during the activity, pointing to the practices of affiliation that nonetheless served to construct and maintain power imbalances between the professionals and clients. Although the idea of casting group counseling as peer support is motivated by an attempt to foster equality at the level of group interaction, our analysis shows that such organization tends to invoke other inequalities that may be even deeper than the ones with which the participants begin.","PeriodicalId":90511,"journal":{"name":"Group","volume":"19 1","pages":"67 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90931569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}