This workshop describes a 22-session couples’ group intervention and curriculum for lower and middle-class couples. Each session begins with a talk-show video showing discussions with couples in poverty on curriculum topics, e.g.’ healing from infidelity, avoiding and healing from domestic violence, etc. The video is followed by group discussion, a brief teaching,and an exercise that focuses on learning new skills. Throughout most of the curriculum,, physiological soothing is taught through biofeedback. Details of the curriculum and video samples will be shown.
Current meta-analysis by Julia Babcock shows that same-sex group treatment for domestic violence is ineffective. Couples treatment is illegal in many states. We will present the results (and methods) for treating only situational (not characterological) domestic violence that shows high effectiveness with lasting effects after 18 months. Treatment utilizes Gottman-method curriculum with 21 sessions of couples group work.
Invited Address Session 5 - Part 2 - Group Therapy: Mainline or Sideline? featuring Robert L. Goulding, MD.
With discussant Virginia M Satir, ACSW.
Moderated by F. Theodore Reid, Jr, MD.
Topical Panel 02 on Group, Individual or Family Therapy Part 1 featuring Mary M Goulding, MSW, Virginia Satir, ACSW, Paul Watzlawick, PhD, and Jeffrey K Zeig, PhD.
Moderated by F Theodore Reid, Jr, MD.
Topical Panel 11 on Group, Individual or Family Therapy Part 2, featuring Albert Ellis, PhD, Robert L Goulding, MD, Salvador Minuchin, MD, and Zerka Moreno.
Moderated by John C Racy, MD.
A therapy group will be formed from Conference participants, in order to demonstrate what can be accomplished in a single group session. Emphasis will be on establishing therapeutic contracts for change and using the past to effect this change. Discussion and whole-group experiences will follow the therapy demonstration.
The proliferation of therapeutic groups, either self-help or professionally staffed, has dramatically expanded the applicability of psychotherapy. This development reflects society's increased willingness to deal communally with personal problems that were previously restricted to private psychotherapeutic sessions. Gestalt group therapy, with its original emphasis on the freshness and pungency of individual experience has also extended its perspective to group work. Dr. Miriam Polster describes how the gestalt approach enlivens group focus and interaction through its principles of awareness and experiment-and especially through its attention to the quality of the contact between group members.