Comfort Level Facilitating Groups In this paper, I will briefly describe two types of groups and address my personal comfort as a facilitator for each. I will describe the differences in my confidence and comfort level facilitating psychoeducational and psychotherapy groups. Following the group descriptions, I will write about potential strategies that can be employed to reduce my discomfort and improve effectiveness as a group leader.
Description of Groups Corey, Corey, and Corey (2010) define psychoeducational groups as a structured group that seeks to relay factual information so that members are no longer inhibited by educational deficits in areas in which they struggle. The goals of such a group often include improved behavioral skills, …show more content…
Corey et al. note that psychoeducational groups do not require the facilitator to possess therapy skills, which is a requirement to run a psychotherapy group. I found it easier to follow a curriculum and use multi-media to keep the adolescents interested. I taught a group on the pyschopharmacology of abused substances for the adolescent unit. I have a personal interest in the topic and used pop culture to try and connect with the patients and keep them interested in the material. It was so much easier to keep the unit calm during this type of group than a psychotherapy group. Psychotherapy groups on the unit created doubt and anxiety in my ability to contain the tremendous amount of anger and emotion on the unit. The adolescents did not enjoy group and frequently challenged any authority. There were times they fought physically and I feared each group that I would not be able to contain their acting out. It was difficult to make process interpretations because the patient’s were so out of control. I had confidence that I could understand in my mind what was happening but could not figure out how to use that knowledge to contain what was …show more content…
I continue to avoid running groups so I am happy to be taking this course and receiving some instruction so I feel less incompetent and anxious. I have been in a five time a week psychoanalysis for close to fifteen years and find it to be instrumental for my personal and professional health and skills. I think I need better supervision than I have received over the last few years. I can use my analysis to be more self-aware and work through the anxiety attributed to running psychotherapy groups. I understand that avoiding groups isn’t a helpful strategy and I need to do work on myself to be able to embrace the ambiguity Yalom and Leszcz (2005) so happily embrace. It is the ambiguity that I believe I have the most trouble with and I think parring myself with an experienced co-leader might be a great way to get back in the game. I may have been thrown as a novice therapist into very difficult settings with dangerous patients that has left some serious doubt I need to work
Description of Groups Corey, Corey, and Corey (2010) define psychoeducational groups as a structured group that seeks to relay factual information so that members are no longer inhibited by educational deficits in areas in which they struggle. The goals of such a group often include improved behavioral skills, …show more content…
Corey et al. note that psychoeducational groups do not require the facilitator to possess therapy skills, which is a requirement to run a psychotherapy group. I found it easier to follow a curriculum and use multi-media to keep the adolescents interested. I taught a group on the pyschopharmacology of abused substances for the adolescent unit. I have a personal interest in the topic and used pop culture to try and connect with the patients and keep them interested in the material. It was so much easier to keep the unit calm during this type of group than a psychotherapy group. Psychotherapy groups on the unit created doubt and anxiety in my ability to contain the tremendous amount of anger and emotion on the unit. The adolescents did not enjoy group and frequently challenged any authority. There were times they fought physically and I feared each group that I would not be able to contain their acting out. It was difficult to make process interpretations because the patient’s were so out of control. I had confidence that I could understand in my mind what was happening but could not figure out how to use that knowledge to contain what was …show more content…
I continue to avoid running groups so I am happy to be taking this course and receiving some instruction so I feel less incompetent and anxious. I have been in a five time a week psychoanalysis for close to fifteen years and find it to be instrumental for my personal and professional health and skills. I think I need better supervision than I have received over the last few years. I can use my analysis to be more self-aware and work through the anxiety attributed to running psychotherapy groups. I understand that avoiding groups isn’t a helpful strategy and I need to do work on myself to be able to embrace the ambiguity Yalom and Leszcz (2005) so happily embrace. It is the ambiguity that I believe I have the most trouble with and I think parring myself with an experienced co-leader might be a great way to get back in the game. I may have been thrown as a novice therapist into very difficult settings with dangerous patients that has left some serious doubt I need to work