The Effectiveness of Group Therapy - Research Paper Example

 Group Therapy In this paper, I am going to carry out a literature review on group therapy and anger management. The understanding of many researchers with regard to the effectiveness of group therapy has evolved over the past years. Studies and reports have characterized the group literature in the first years of the twentieth century. The first studies on this topic emerged in the 1960s[Bur03]. There are very many differences in opinion on a number of treatment and questions on efficacy. The stage is now set for our current study. In this paper, in this paper, I carry out a quantitative literature review of group therapy that is wide enough to include a wide range of patient and treatment types. Group therapy is now gaining much prominence. In this review, I sought to find the relationship between improvement rates in group therapy and other treatments in a systematic fashion. All the six studies contain a past research and theory suggestions that could be related to treatment efficacy. Client variables include diagnosis and chronicity. Therapist characteristics consisted of the theoretical orientation and experience. Methodological variables entailed the source and the content. The center for managing substance abuse developed the Treatment Improvement Protocols (TIPs). Group therapies are the main part in the protocols (Samhsa.gov, 2015). The goal of the TIP is offering the latest research and clinical findings as well as distilling them into practical guidelines. TIP describes effective types of group therapies and offers a theoretical basis for the effectiveness of the therapies. The effectiveness of the therapy has led to increased popularity and acceptance of the group therapy techniques. The findings of the study suggest that the one reason that makes people who abuse drugs are more likely to stay sober is the rewarding and therapeutic benefits like affiliation and identification. According to this piece of literature, group therapy has many advantages. Groups provide peer support and pressure from substances abuse[Vel11]. They also reduce the sense of isolation that most drug abusers experience. Further, they enable people who abuse drugs to witness the recovery of others. On top of this, the group members learn how to cope with their substance abuse and other problems. Finally, the groups provide a family-like experience. An investigation done by [Kos22] tried to prove the effectiveness of inpatient group therapy. An analysis of 46 studies with pre-post measure publisher between 1980 and 2004 was carried out. In the examination of differential effectiveness, diagnosis, theoretical orientation and the role of the group in a particular treatment setting were put into use. There were beneficial effects found for the therapy in a controlled study (d=0.310 and other studies with pre-post data (d=0.59). it was evident that there were differences in homogeneity of patient improvement sizes across the different diagnostic categories. There was a greater improvement in the mood disorder patients when compared mixed post-traumatic stress disorders. A comparison between controlled studies and pre-post measures studies indicated zero improvements for the waitlist patients thus contradicting the previous reports. Implications for the therapy and future research are also highlighted. A study by [Hun13] analyzed the application of group therapy in successful psychological treatments. Group therapy works efficiently for the treatment of depression and works better for patients with severe symptoms (Hofmann & Bogels, 2006). Treating bipolar disorder using medication together with group therapy, leads to the better functioning of the patients and fewer relapses. There is sufficient proof to support the fact that the use of group therapy in treating anxiety and other related disorders is very effective. Moreover, group therapy is very effective in reducing smoking than usual medication. For patients with the coronary heart disease, the therapy is very effective in reducing depression. The therapy is also applied in the psycho educational theory. When a patient suffers from a bad disease, he/she may fail to accept the results of the diagnosis. This may prompt the psychologists to help such a person using the group therapy procedure. Therapists are increasingly treating clients with aggression problems. Anger issues are being addressed in various health settings. There is a choice of interventions, providing a range of psycoeducational treatments for clients with aggressive behaviors. Aggression is defined as a behavior that appears to lead to the destruction of target identity. Acts of aggression can be directed at oneself, others, or an external object (Glancy & Knott, 2002). However, in most cases, anger is an interpersonal matter while aggressive acts are directed to others. One study found that in over a half of anger episodes, the target was a loved one or a close friend. Therapists are routinely confronted by clients with anger control problems (DiGiuseppe & Tafrate, 2003). The majority of published studies focus on anxiety and depression instead of anger and violence. Anger management programs have recently become increasingly available (DiGiuseppe & Tafrate, 2003). Group therapy is firmly based on a theory that states that emotions are mediated by ongoing appraisals. Group therapy on anger management has received extensive research compared to other treatment interventions. The aim of this treatment approach is to identify and modulate psychological responses to provocation via various treatment techniques. The goal of the treatment is the regulation of anger through monitoring of personal anger patterns. The approach relies on the present experience as opposed to past childhood ones. It aims at directly reducing the symptoms as well as implementing the strategies designed to build improved problem solving skills (McMinn & Sanderson, 2001). In the therapy, the participants are helped by observing how the fellow group members recover from the anger bursts. Galovski and Blanchard’s (2002) findings are a source of good evidence for the efficacy of group therapy application on aggressive driving behaviors in the population at large. In the study, one group failed to improve on the anger measures until it was crossed over by the treatment group. Total driving anger decreased significantly as well as hostile gestures. Ecological validity still remains an objective for most treatment outcome research. In managing anger, well-controlled studies have led to a revelation of encouraging treatment effects. However, the generalization of these findings to the various multicultural populations often needs firm establishment. References Bur03: , (Burlingame, Fuhriman, & Mosier, 2003), Vel11: , (Velasquez, Maurer, Crouch, & DiClemente, 2011), Kos22: , (Ko¨sters, Burlingame, Nachtigall, & Strauss, 22), Hun13: , (Hunsley, Elliott, & Therrien, 2013), Read More