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From Psychoeducation to Process: Rebuilding After Trauma · 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
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  alive for us all. As I mentioned at
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  the beginning of this series of lectures today,
• 0:15
  a process group is about an individual
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  who has the education, the information, and has normalized
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  they're not alone. Psychoeducational,
• 0:28
  and they've gone through treatment where they
• 0:32
  can work through symptoms
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  and they can reduce symptoms using different
• 0:41
  psychological, educational, or whatnot coping abilities,
• 0:45
  skills,
• 0:47
  and different treatment-type
• 0:51
  modalities. And now they're
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  in such a safe place— I'm going to say such— that
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  they're able now to want to go process their
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  experiences. Okay,
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  and so in this, the facilitation, it usually requires
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  highly skilled specialized professionals
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  capable of synthesizing common
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  thematic threads across disparate
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  participant crises. What is meant by
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  this is that usually, yes, it's a licensed
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  individual, it's someone with that type of expertise,
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  or it's someone who has worked in the field for a very long
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  time, and they've come to understand that
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  the common but also personal traumas
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  of individuals. And so
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  this is a person that is very aware
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  of and capable of synthesizing
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  shared emotional and psychological memories and
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  responses, but also is able
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  to help the individuals work through that. So the focus
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  of a process group is unpacking life events
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  and exploring systematic— the
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  fancy word in this slide says etiology,
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  which is basically individual life experiences
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  behind distressing behaviors and
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  experimenting with coping skills acquired in earlier
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  treatment phases. Okay,
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  and so this group is really trying to
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  dig down on that specific
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  experiences and stuff that have led the individual to
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  where they are now. Okay,
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  the structure tends to be open-ended.
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  It tends to be interaction-driven. There's no set agenda
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  for these types of groups, uh,
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  and it serves as a relational testing ground for
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  rebuilding interpersonal communication.
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  So you'll notice that in the process group,
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  aha, people experience this like me.
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  I felt I was alone, and there's other people that go
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  through these common experiences. The treatment group is about
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  symptom reduction, focusing on keeping me feeling sane
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  in the trauma-type group arena.
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  In the process, it's more about
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  testing and rebuilding that communication,
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  those interpersonal relationships that are safe,
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  that are structured. So the end result
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  for a trauma-type group in a process group is,
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  okay, you've went through the work for yourself.
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  Now how do we rebuild interpersonal trust
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  in a healthy way? How do we start rebuilding relationships?
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  How do we start rebuilding life in a
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  healthy way without the trauma the
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  abuse or the addiction or the cancer
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  diagnosis or the mental health condition interrupting
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  those processes. Okay, and this is really
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  what the main purpose of a process group is.
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  So I hope by the end of this you see why in
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  a perfect world We start
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  with psychoeducational, then we go to treatment,
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  and then we go to process. Thank you for joining us
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  for this Psychology Explained. I hope you'll join us in later
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  episodes where we can— we'll continue to investigate
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  the human mind and psychology.