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Pastoral Psychology -     

Self psychology and group therapy

This paper illustrates how the theories of Heinz Kohut elucidate the curative aspects of group treatment. Group therapy is an ideal milieu in which mirroring, idealizing and alterego transferences can be experienced and worked through. Transmuting internalizations, or psychic structure building, occur when optimal frustration of these needs can be provided by available selfobjects. In group therapy a patient can use the group-as-a-whole, the individual members as well as the leader as potential selfobjects. With the help of individual sessions to reflect on group encounters, a patient can gain a more fully integrated therapeutic experience.The author wishes to acknowledge Susan Sands, Ph.D., Jane Jordan, M.S.W., and Ruth White, Ph.D., for their help.     

The process-observer in group therapy

This case study describes the inclusion of a nonverbal, trained process-observer into therapy groups for parents having severely disturbed family systems. The observer remained nonverbal during the sessions while taking notes to be used in writing a one-page clinical summary, which was mailed to each group member. The process-observer was included to improve the clients' initial involvement in dealing with personal problems and as a catalyst for group development. Among the important functions of the written summaries were: reduction of initial anxiety, focusing the group on important issues, enhancement of continuity across sessions, and promoting therapeutic work between sessions. The observer was also valuable in providing feedback to the therapists. Specific guidelines for the use of a process-observer are provided.     

Outpatient alcoholics view group therapy

Eight chronic alcoholic outpatients who completed six months of a biweekly therapy group returned questionnaires based on Yalom's concepts of group therapy curative factors. The questionnaire data revealed that the most helpful factors were instillation of hope, altruism, group cohesiveness, interpersonal output and universality. These results are discussed with reference to other studies using Yalom's technique.Supported by Biomedical Research Support Grant Number 2-0570260-30102, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, San Francisco, California.     

Participant self-disclosure in group therapy

Thirty-nine adult hospitalized psychiatric patients, 18 men and 21 women, participated in a study aimed at investigating the relationship between participant self-disclosure in a therapy group and personality and therapy outcome. The results showed that in this type of sample the more disturbed patients disclosed more, which is contrary to results usually obtained among normals and neurotics. Similarly, for some patients, higher degrees of disclosure were related to worse therapy outcomes. These results indicate that the indiscriminate insistence of some therapists on selfdisclosure is inappropriate with hospitalized patients. Improving self-esteem by encouraging positively toned self-disclosures appears more promising.Barbara Polikoff, formerly a Research Assistant at Friends Hospital. The authors want to express their appreciation to Dr. Paul Curnow and Michael Bopp who conducted the groups under study and to Joseph Sillitti for his assistance in the data analysis.