The relation of client behavior and therapist helping skills to reduced aggression of boys in individual and group treatment

In this study behavioral processes in the individual and group therapies of aggressive boys were compared and the relationship between these variables and treatment outcome was examined. Level of aggression was the outcome variable, measured by both self-report and teacher-report instruments. Hill's Client Behavior System (CBS; Hill, 1986) with our own ad hoc categories of Reference to Literary Figures and Response to Another, and therapist Helping Skills System (HSS; Hill & O'Brien, 1999) were the behavioral process measures. In terms of the boys' behaviors, discriminant function analyses revealed that Reference to Literary Figures and Response to Another differentiated the treatment formats; with regard to therapists' behaviors, Questions and Challenge differentiated the modalities. Results offered partial support for the greater effectiveness of group, compared to individual, therapy in reducing aggression. Outcome, however, as measured by teacher reports of aggression, was adversely affected in group therapy by the presence of specific behaviors in the boys. Implications of the findings for modifying the group therapy program as well as for the search for process variables appropriate to the treatment of aggressive children are discussed.