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Inside Treatment Groups: How Therapy Targets Symptoms · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

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  Welcome to this edition of Psychology Explained by Dr.
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  Curtis Peterson, who is trying to bring psychology alive
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  for us all. All right,
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  for this, uh, modality, I am going to use
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  very Western ideas of treatment, and I
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  want to just note that treatment
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  groups can go well beyond this conversation that we're talking
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  about. To more holistic models of treatment.
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  But I want to speak specifically to the idea
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  of treatment groups as this modality
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  of symptom reduction and
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  the like. Okay, so basically a treatment
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  group is aimed at working on those symptoms
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  that bring about trauma,
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  anxiety, the— in
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  addiction groups, we're talking about things like relapse
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  prevention that focus on symptoms that lead
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  to addictive processes. And so the treatment
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  group is really about skill coping
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  and symptom reduction. Okay,
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  and so if you see this scale on the, the,
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  the, uh, this on this anxiety component,
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  uh, you start with an individual with a high anxiety,
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  and by the end of the treatment group, you hope that
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  they score lower on some measure
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  of anxiety and anxiety issues.
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  Okay, so the main components
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  of a treatment group is it's usually facilitated by
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  a licensed clinician or a
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  credentialed mental health professional.
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  This can include facilitation by individuals who
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  are supervised under a licensed individual,
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  So, I know, for example, on the Tohono O'odham Nation,
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  their behavioral health center has individuals
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  that are not necessarily licensed
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  or whatnot, but they're under a licensed
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  individual who then guides
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  and signs off on the treatment modality that
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  is being provided by the individual. Okay, this is
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  true also, for example, in a lot
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  of treatment centers for
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  addiction where there may be a
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  few licensed individuals,
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  but the treatment is provided under the supervision
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  of individuals. And Cameron says, in Salt
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  River at treatment I work at,
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  follows kind of the same model. My point being at
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  this level is this is something that
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  there at least has to be a supervised licensed
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  individual that then reviews
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  and provides guidance and supervision to those
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  providing the treatment because in this one
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  the focus is concrete
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  symptom reduction. Specifically,
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  in our example
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  with— for example, with when we're dealing
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  with domestic violence or something like that,
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  symptom reduction has to do with PTSD
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  symptoms from the trauma. It may deal with anxiety
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  or major depression that you want the individual
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  to, to do. And there's a question, will we
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  be licensed after this class? No,
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  licensure actually usually occurs at the master's level
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  for counseling. You can become a bachelor-level
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  licensed social worker. Uh, but usually the licensure
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  is left to, um, people with
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  advanced degrees. Now, with that being said,
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  you can become— you could potentially become certified
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  in addiction counseling, um,
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  if you take the courses you've done at TOCC.
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  And there's national organizations that that
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  does certification for addiction,
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  and I'll go over that later
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  on for those who want to seek that certification.
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  But yeah, classes like this are preparatory.
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  I'm hoping that you'll go on and seek
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  that licensure, but no, this class isn't—
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  is a step towards it, but it's
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  one of many steps. So I hope that answers the
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  question. So the
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  focus is on concrete symptom reduction when we're talking
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  about treatment type of groups.
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  And the method is that
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  There's really a more— Cameron,
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  yes, I'm saying it is possible.
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  Yes, yes, yes. By taking this class,
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  it's very possible with the
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  additional education and everything else. So everyone
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  in this class, I feel, has the potential and the possibility
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  of that. I won't deny that at all because
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  I look at your attendance and I look at what you write,
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  and there's no one here without the ability to
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  become a licensed therapist
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  or a licensed social worker. So thank you, Cameron, for that comment.
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  With the methods for a treatment group,
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  high adherence to structural evidence-based
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  modalities such as cognitive behavioral therapy,
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  dialectical behavioral therapy, are what
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  are adhered to. Now, they have the similarities with
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  a psychosocial group in that you do the check-ins to ground the individuals
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  to the group that day. At the end, after you've
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  gone through rehearsals
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  on how to use a skill, Da, da, da.
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  You do a checkout where you say,
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  you know, basically how will individuals use
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  the skill we learned today or what we talked about today outside
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  the group? And that's more of non-structured
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  conversations. But the good portion of a treatment
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  group is focusing on specific skills and
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  abilities and rehearsing those skills,
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  role-playing those skills.
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  Thank you for joining us for this Psychology Explained. I hope
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  you'll join us in later episodes where we can— we'll continue
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  to investigate the human mind and psychology.