Latest / Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom / Group Therapy Unpacked: Psychoeducation, Treatment & Process

Transcript

Group Therapy Unpacked: Psychoeducation, Treatment & Process · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

• 0:00
  Welcome to this edition of Psychology Explained by Dr.
• 0:04
  Curtis Peterson, who is trying to bring psychology alive
• 0:08
  for us all. Um, why these modalities
• 0:12
  tend to be separate, what is the purpose
• 0:16
  of each, and then we'll move into psychoeducational
• 0:21
  support groups as our first example.
• 0:24
  So psycho support education groups are
• 0:30
  meant to provide the emotional and social backing to
• 0:35
  dismantle and isolate and normalize
• 0:38
  shared traumatic experiences.
• 0:44
  So, psychoeducational, if we break this down,
• 0:47
  psycho or psychological
• 0:52
  is that opportunity for a person
• 0:55
  to say, I'm not alone.
• 0:59
  I'm here. There's other people who have experienced what
• 1:03
  I experienced. The educational
• 1:07
  is that normalizing process,
• 1:12
  saying, yes, we have all had this shared experience,
• 1:17
  and there's a shared trajectory,
• 1:21
  even though we've all had our unique experience with it.
• 1:25
  So, often psychoeducational groups have
• 1:29
  specific topics each week.
• 1:33
  Within the domestic violence survivor,
• 1:36
  you usually start with introduction,
• 1:39
  sharing, and then you go into the power and control,
• 1:44
  and then the power and control wheel. And then every
• 1:48
  week after that kind of breaks that wheel down to isolation,
• 1:53
  financial, emotional,
• 1:57
  psychological, social isolation,
• 2:01
  and power techniques that abusers often
• 2:04
  use. It's so— one, it's meant
• 2:08
  to say, I'm not alone, and two,
• 2:13
  this is the process, the normalized way
• 2:17
  that this is experienced.
• 2:20
  Treatment groups, on the other hand, tend to
• 2:24
  be highly structured and aimed at achieving a measurable therapeutic
• 2:30
  outcome in symptom reduction. So in
• 2:35
  this group, you're really focusing
• 2:38
  on trauma responses. In the example of domestic
• 2:43
  violence groups, anxiety, depression— within
• 2:47
  substance abuse, this can be a relapse prevention
• 2:51
  group. It can be a group
• 2:55
  that is focused on what's called cognitive restructuring,
• 3:00
  where you're helping the individual restructure
• 3:04
  thoughts they have that lead to their addictive process.
• 3:10
  And so the, these tend to be very focused.
• 3:14
  And then the process group is
• 3:18
  the type of group that
• 3:23
  individuals who have the coping ability,
• 3:27
  the treatment group skills
• 3:31
  and abilities, and the education now
• 3:35
  can safely explore those
• 3:39
  deep-seated memories,
• 3:42
  experiences that led them to their trauma,
• 3:46
  led them to a
• 3:52
  violent relationship, led them to
• 3:56
  the situation in, in, uh, the field
• 3:59
  of working with people who,
• 4:03
  uh, have diagnoses of cancer or
• 4:06
  something like that. This is dealing with—
• 4:11
  working with, I shouldn't say dealing with working with and
• 4:15
  exploring those deep-seated emotions. For example,
• 4:20
  why do I have this cancer but
• 4:25
  my siblings don't? What was it about
• 4:28
  me that this disease targeted
• 4:33
  me but not anyone else within my
• 4:36
  family? Because these tend to be
• 4:40
  biological type of disorders,
• 4:43
  assuming they're genetically transmitted.
• 4:47
  And why is it me suffering but not,
• 4:50
  uh, my sibling who has all
• 4:53
  of these other issues? I've been good my entire life.
• 4:57
  I've done everything right. I'm the one suffering, but they're not.
• 5:02
  And that's just an example, okay?
• 5:05
  Of what a process group really is meant to be.
• 5:10
  Thank you for joining us for this Psychology Explained.
• 5:14
  I hope you'll join us in later episodes where we can— we'll continue
• 5:18
  to investigate the human mind and psychology.