Adult - a group addressing relationships (behavior change) mental illness

Group Work
Author’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Group Work
Course Project Group’s Overview
Family, marriage and children are the basic institutions of society and as long as this building block is maintained, the society may function consistently. Sometimes, the same institution is jeopardized by separation, domestic problems and divorce. Mending family relationships is one of the crucial tasks of a counselor. This importance lies in the fact that broken families do not only affect the husband and the wife or other couples, but also the children themselves. Research finds that children in broken families are more likely to experience socio-economic, psychological, and emotional problems in the long-term duration (Härkönen, Bernardi & Boertien, 2017). So, this creates vital importance for all counselors to ensure that couples consider marital separation as a last resort. Accordingly, this group activity would focus on couples that are on the verge of ‘breaking up’ and who have not yet gone through counseling. The group will be conducted on 8 to 12 members. The group will be conducted on the basis of a world-widely used therapy i.e. cognitive-behavioural theory which emphasizes people’s thinking patterns (Chand & Huecker, 2018). The theoretical basis will help change the members’ emotions and behaviors by changes in their cognitive patterns. It will provide a brief measure to handle the group’s present situation by emphasizing a problem-solving attitude. CBT has been used aggressively with couples both in individual therapy as well as group interventions (Taheri, Zeinalzadeh, Ghanbarpour & Taheri, 2013; Mosalanejad, Koolaee & Jamali, 2012; Nilforooshan, Ahmadi, Abedi & Ahmadi, 2006). For the current group, short-term goals will be to:
* Promote understanding between couples and enhance effective verbal and non-verbal communication
* Discover and disintegrate misunderstandings between couples
* Creating a sense of belongingness among the members and eliminating feelings of loneliness by sharing each other’s stories
* Devising and suggesting adaptive and healthy solutions depending on members’ experiences and opinions
* Formulating a behavioral agenda for the couples to follow according to their needs and wants
Pre-Group Process
Care and precision will help in recruiting members for the group. A specific inclusion/exclusion criterion will be formed in order to create uniformity and relevance between the group members. Couples will be selected who are willing to file for a divorce or are separated. They will be included in the group if they have one or more biological child. Age, socio-economic class, ethnicity, religion, and the residential area will be matched to create similarity in group characteristics. The exclusion criteria will specify the degree of therapy needed for the individual. If a couple wants to receive therapy but demonstrates symptoms beyond the group’s agenda, he/she will be adequately guided for alternative interventions as well as referral to concerned departments may be made. The members that are to be included in the study may be selected from psychiatric clinics, social support departments or through the snowball technique. Group location will be selected according to the ease of each member in terms of distance, comfort and accessibility.
Group Rules and Ethics
The group CBT process will be carried out based on certain rules that will help achieve the goals of the group. Confidentiality and positive regard must be maintained throughout. Moreover, equal chances for everyone to express and talk will be ensured. Time management will be focused by plotting the initial, middle and ending phase of each group session. Equitable use of time will be ensured by allotting particular time slots e.g. 5 minutes may be given to each member to revise his learning, suggest solutions or express concerns. Least disruption during a member’s conversation will be made sure. An active listening process and empathizing nature of the group will help in achieving session-wise tasks. Punctuality and on-time arrival will also be focused on adequate time consumption and minimize waiting duration.
Phases and Therapy Process
The group sessions will be divided into four phases. Each phase will have a separate agenda and goals. The therapist will be in a leading role, thus, depicting various leadership qualities for smooth progress.
* Initial phase. These sessions will be introductory in nature where roles will be defined and group members will be accustomed to each other. Expectations of each member may be addressed along with the rules of the group. Basic ethics such as confidentiality will be addressed. The group leader/therapist will demonstrate the ability of constancy by showing secure feelings, maintaining clear boundaries, upholding punctuality and even dressing well. Confidence will be demonstrated by being vigilant of uncertainty as well as displaying self-knowledge and clear intent. Empathy will be practiced by the group leader himself as well as asked to be practiced by every other member (Tolan & Cameron, 2016). Lastly, this phase will require the therapist to be accurate in agenda setting according to the goals and rationale of the group.
* Transition phase. Progressing from the initial introductory phase is present when the group is entering a more personal stage. It is the time when members may feel anxio...