Impact of therapist interventions on early sessions of group therapy

A methodology for studying the effect of therapist style on the process of group therapy was developed and applied to two early sessions in two different therapy groups. In general, the results supported the hypothesis that individually directed, confrontative interventions would lead to emotionally focused and immediate client responding. The results failed to confirm the hypothesis that relatively interpretive interventions would be the most productive. In fact, simple facilitations tended to produce higher mean focusing than all other types of interventions. Perhaps in very early sessions the most productive interventions are those designed simply to encourage patients to talk and interact. The decisive technique of a group therapist may be interpretation, which helps patients to comprehend the significance of personally relevant, emotionally charged interactions. However, in the fledgling group, the therapist may be most helpful by simply facilitating members' speaking up and interacting. Indeed, clarifications and interpretations may turn out to be the group therapist's most productive interventions, but perhaps not until after group cohesiveness is developed in early sessions.