Group Therapy Experience

Group Therapy Experience

PSYCH Reflection Paper

PSYCH Reflection Paper

The group therapy experience was an amazing learning opportunity that will contribute to my future competency as a mental health practitioner. Working with the group presented multiple challenges that impeded efforts to establish harmony for the success of the group processes. However, with time and commitment from the group members and me, these challenges were addressed, and members finally shared a common goal and helped each other to achieve the set goals and objectives. The group sessions were successful in helping members understand themselves better, recognize the need for behavior change, and identify the drivers for change and their capacity for change. I credit every group member for their meaningful contribution to the group, and I would use this small group session as a reference for future group experiences.

The group comprised six African American youth and adolescents from Nassau County, Long Island, NY, presenting with similar mental health issues, including depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and non-conformity. The group members also reported pain points as neglect, verbal abuse, and pervasive trauma. These individuals felt powerless and unheard and did not want to identify with the cultural practices of their families and communities. The composition was highly homogeneous, given that all members were African Americans and presented with similar mental health issues, which was good for the group dynamics. The members had more commonalities than differences, helping establish cohesion and harmony more quickly than in other group experiences. However, members were from different countries of origin, including Jamaica, America, Africa, and the Caribbean Islands, implying that their base cultures differed, and impacted group dynamics initially because of a superiority complex displayed by those from America. Nonetheless, the issue was sorted by creating a respectful and empathetic group atmosphere.

The group session was highly interactive, and members played a significant role in actualizing group activities. Members were required to share their experiences with the team and identify similar patterns in behavior and cognition. Members were also required to help one another discover problematic behavior and thinking patterns and propose desirable changes. There were group discussion sessions involving members discussing in smaller groups of threes or twos to understand each other better and help themselves through the recovery journey. At first, members were reluctant to engage in these activities because they required sharing a lot of personal information and engaging each other at a personal level, which created a lot of conflicts. Initially, the environment was not trusting because members barely knew each other. However, with time, these activities became enjoyable and played a critical role in group cohesion and harmony.

(Group Therapy Experience)

The group sought high involvement from members, hence engagement in the decision-making process. Members’ insights and perspectives were adopted to help develop a plan of care, group activities, and evaluation strategies. I adopted the consensus decision-making technique, where the group agreed on the problem and shared ideas and opinions regarding potential solutions (Chladek, 2018). The recommendations selected were acceptable to all members. To address the superiority complex problem, I adopted the dialectical inquiry by separating members into two subgroups to develop opposing assumptions and recommendations on the problem and later discuss them, intending to arrive at an agreement (Chladek, 2018). These techniques were effective in ensuring everyone felt heard, valued, and worthy.

Both formal and informal ground rules were set to guide communication at group initiation. The group was founded on several norms for communication, including quick conflict resolution, high engagement, bottom-up communication, transparency, consistent feedback, respect, empathy, and turn-taking. These communication norms facilitate successful interactions between group members and between members and the practitioner. Avoiding disrupting activities and turn-taking was on top during group sessions to encourage people to share and be more involved.

From the experience, the group went through all the Bruce Tuckman stages of group development, including the forming, storming, norming, and performing phases (Haynes et al., 2019). These stages were inevitable, considering that members were new to each other and had to develop relationships in the process. The storming phase was challenging and almost broke the group as some members wanted to quit. However, after successfully going through this stage, members formed meaningful relationships and shared a common goal, which they developed through brainstorming and consensus decision-making approaches.

Overall, the group work achieved the intended goals and objectives, although more such groups and interventions are needed to ensure members continue in the recovery journey and achieve their ideal selves. Often, group sessions are problematic to set up and run due to functional variability (Malhotra & Baker, 2019). It is challenging to offer individualized assistance, guidance, and evaluation. However, based on the group and individuals’ performance assessment and the regular feedback shared among group members and the between group members and the practitioner, the work of the group achieved its intended purpose.

Initially, working with the group was overwhelming, and the first sessions were ineffective, but helped identify individual differences and members to understand each other and central meeting points members can work with to ensure cohesion and harmony. My experience working with groups has been a roller-coaster, but I appreciate the result because the group achieved the intended purpose. I have learned that working with groups requires a lot of patience, empathy, understanding, compassion, and setting boundaries, strategies I will adopt in my future group experiences.

References

Chladek, N. (2018, July 26). 3 group decision-making techniques for success. Harvard Business School. https://online.hbs.edu/post/group-decision-making-techniques

Haynes, N. J., Vandenberg, R. J., DeJoy, D. M., Wilson, M. G., Padilla, H. M., Zuercher, H. S., & Robertson, M. M. (2019). The workplace health group: A case study of 20 years of multidisciplinary research. The American psychologist, 74(3), 380–393. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000445

Malhotra, A., & Baker, J. (2019). Group therapy. In: StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK549812/

 

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