Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand—Volume 1

GROUP

PSYCHOTHERAPY:

EXERCISES

AT HAND

Volume 1

Twenty-eight Topics

with

Practical

Exercises

for

Psychotherapy

and

Mental Health

Vacir de Souza, LMHC, CAP, CFAE

Cover design and computer graphics by Irina Nezhevleva de Souza. Cover illustration by Frank Cuzan. Interior illustrations by Elena Yushina. Text designs by Vacir de Souza.

Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand-Volume 1

Copyright © 2011 Vacir de Souza, LMHC, CAP, CFAE

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-7842-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-7843-0 (ebk)

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iUniverse rev. date: 2/14/11

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

How to Use this Book

A Few Words about Group Psychotherapy

Benefits of Using this Book

A Word of Caution

Treatment Schedule

 Topic 1: Developing Group Cohesion

 Topic 2: Identifying Needs

 Topic 3: Developing Positive Expectations

Topic 4: Encouraging Positive Changes

 Topic 5: Exploring One’s Potential

 Topic 6: Increasing Motivation

 Topic 7: Processing Daily Life Feelings

 Topic 8: Processing Feelings of Fear

 Topic 9: Processing Feelings of Forgiveness

 Topic 10: Processing Feelings of Frustration

 Topic 11: Processing Feelings of Helplessness and Hopelessness

 Topic 12: Developing Trust

 Topic 13: Grief and Loss

 Topic 14: Working on Misconceptions

 Topic 15: Working on Self-Defeating Thoughts

 Topic 16: Working on Thoughts and Feelings

 Topic 17: Working Out Positive Combined Treatments

 Topic 18: Resolving Unfinished Business

 Topic 19: Developing Support Systems

Topic 20: Developing Independence

 Topic 1: Discussing Principles of Mental Illness

 Topic 2: Understanding Mental Illness

 Topic 3: Identifying Causes of Mental Illness

 Topic 4: Managing Mental Illness

 Topic 5: Controlling Mental Illness

 Topic 6: Dealing with Death Wishes

 Topic 7: Dealing with Suicidal Ideations

 Topic 8: Promoting Mental Health

Summary

References

Developing and organizing a concise and well-written book with topics and exercises to cover all parts of a group psychotherapy process is a challenging task. Vacir de Souza’s books, Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand Volumes 1—3, are some of the best-organized materials available in the market. The collection contains a great amount of information, including hints, procedures, group session models, and handouts to facilitate the group psychotherapy session process. They provide a reliable guide to conducting group psychotherapy sessions for the professionals working in community mental health centers, hospitals, or private settings.

The purpose of Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand is to provide professionals with specific topics specially designed to gradually involve patients in group psychotherapy in a nonthreatening, comfortable, step-by-step process of increasing positive changes in the patients’ lives. With this collection, Vacir de Souza has combined his more than fourteen years of experience working with groups by using an eclectic combination of all interventions available. The topics and corresponding exercises have been meticulously created and organized in a logical sequence to facilitate the group leader’s efforts and enhance the progress with the patients. Each topic is diverse and contains at least two different exercises to be used in any specific group psychotherapy session. The topics are intended to offer treatment for all kinds of mental illnesses and poly-substance abuse.

George Dwnenigo, LCSW

Clinical Social ‘Worker/Outreach Coordinator, Parkinson’s disease and

Movement Disorder Center, Department of Neurology,

University of Miami Miller School of Mediane,

Miami, FL· 33136

Group psychotherapy is an effective and popular form of therapeutic intervention in a variety of settings, especially in outpatient treatment. Although there are many effective techniques and exercises for group psychotherapy, very seldom are they presented in an organized collection designed to cover the full spectrum of specific group psychotherapy.

All exercises of Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand are written in a clear and professional style so group leaders will have no difficulty applying the exercises in helping others gain a greater understanding of themselves and make positive changes in their lives.

The three volumes of Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand cover all parts of the group psychotherapy process. They should be used by clinicians as an adjunct to group psychotherapy. If methodically implemented, the exercises can open emotional doors in a safe and nonthreatening manner for patients struggling to overcome mental illness, eventually allowing them to live more independent lives and have more rewarding experiences. Group members may feel more at ease when using exercises that are structured, which may lead to improved mental health.

I believe Vacir de Souza’s set of books, Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand, can greatly assist any professional in the mental health field, including those working in outpatient and inpatient treatment programs in mental health centers, hospitals, jails, group homes, shelters, or private settings.

James Harmon Cook, MD, Psychiatry

Clinical Director, Greater Miami Behavioral Health Care Center,

Miami, FL· 33166

Acknowledgments

This book was created with the purpose of assisting all dedicated mental health professionals in the field of group psychotherapy who are committed to bringing about effective and practical changes in their patients.

Special thanks to James Harmon Cook, MD, Psychiatry; George Dumenigo, LCSW; and to all the staff at the Greater Miami Behavioral Health Care Center for their support and encouragement in my development of this collection of books. Special appreciation to my co-workers for their feedback and support. Thanks to all my patients for the opportunity to work with them in making positive changes in their lives and for helping me to improve my professional ability as a group leader through the use of the exercises in the group psychotherapy sessions. Furthermore, special thanks to my friend and colleague, Aimee Hinkes Montalvo, LCSW, for her text review, support, feedback, and suggestions.

Introduction

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), Certified Addiction Professional (CAP), Certified Forensic Addictions Examiner (CFAE), and a qualified supervisor to registered interns or provisional licensees. My current work takes place in a partial hospitalization program (PHP) at the Greater Miami Behavioral Health Care Center in Miami, Florida. I have more than fourteen years of extensive group therapy experience working with geriatric, chronically ill, and drug and alcohol addicted patients.

When I started working as a psychotherapist providing several group psychotherapy sessions every week, I quickly realized that we did not have an organized collection of topics and exercises designed to cover the full spectrum of problems clinicians must deal with. The topics and exercises were general, and most of the time they needed to be adapted to meet the needs of the patients. Also, some of their contents were limited. I remember how difficult it was to do group psychotherapy without enough material to be explored during a group session. My inspiration to compile and publish a comprehensive list of topics and therapeutic exercises in this collection of books was to share with the dedicated mental health professionals in the field of group psychotherapy all of the successful strategies that I have used with a diverse population of adults of various ages.

Through my experience as a psychotherapist, I have developed and implemented many innovative exercises for various group therapies. I have combined my experience of working with groups into an eclectic combination of all material for group therapies available in the market. My diverse collection of group therapy exercises has been specially organized and designed to help any professional to perform a group psychotherapy session with minimal effort, while employing creative ideas and garnering excellent therapeutic results.

If you are a beginner in this area, there is clearly an abundance of guidance and material in this collection of books to engage you in this challenging field. The material will help you to develop the skills necessary to conduct any kind of group with self-confidence, flexibility, comfort, and an intellectual perspective. For the professional already in the field, the material offers many remarkable innovations, updating and adding to previous ideas new and creative ways of doing group psychotherapy.

The books of Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand are a collection of three volumes containing eighty total topics with more than three hundred exercises for all kinds of group psychotherapy. They are designed to follow a treatment schedule based on the same four-week cycle that is commonly adopted by most community mental health centers, each with four one-hour group psychotherapy sessions daily per group, for five days a week. Volume 1 contains twenty-eight topics, volume 2 contains twenty-eight topics, and volume 3 contains twenty-four topics.

Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand Volumes 1—3 gives group leaders a concise and systematic sequence of topics and exercises to gradually implement in their therapeutic processes. The exercises offer flexible, ready-to-use models of real group sessions that will facilitate the work of any group leader doing group psychotherapy. Each group session model provides valuable suggestions for group interactions, therapeutic interventions, techniques, and treatments. The difficult work of clinical documentation is decreased with these structured exercises. The topics and the exercises may be used in both inpatient and outpatient settings in venues including mental health centers, drug and alcohol treatment centers, residential and day treatment programs, inpatient psychiatric units, geriatric centers, rehabilitation, and chronic care facilities.

This book, volume 1 of the series, contains topics and exercises regarding group psychotherapy and mental

health. It outlines the basic elements of the group therapy process, including group formation, dynamic, and cohesion. At this phase, the patients are guided to identify personal needs, develop positive expectations, explore their potential, and increase their motivation levels. By increasing motivation, the patients start discovering new possibilities for improvement. Gradually, the patients become more involved in the psychotherapy process by gaining knowledge and becoming capable of ventilating feelings and thoughts. The grief/loss and healing unfinished business exercises offer an opportunity for patients dealing with those issues to work on more deep negative feelings and thoughts from their negative experiences. The last two topics of the group psychotherapy section encourage the patients to develop an appropriate social support system and increased independence. The group mental health section includes a great selection of topics and exercises related to mental illness, including psycho-education, understanding of mental illness, principles of mental illness, factors contributing to mental illness, measures for managing mental illness, use of mottos and humor to control mental illness, as well as exercises to cope with death wishes and suicidal inclinations.

How to Use this Book

Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand Volumes 1—3 provides the group leader with a series of structured exercises and is designed as a practical guide in conducting the group psychotherapy sessions. Although the essence of any group psychotherapy activity is the use of verbal techniques, the exercises include nonverbal activities, described in handouts, to help facilitate the group discussion. A hints and procedures section is included in each exercise and provides valuable information, suggestions, and instructions. The hints may induce creativity to the group leader in a way that makes it not only easier to conduct the group activity, but also provides the group leader with an abundance of material to be explored during each group psychotherapy session. The content of each group session model is from real group psychotherapy sessions and contains the sorts of notes that a clinician would be making about their patients.

The three volumes of this collection should be used together for the complete treatment schedule program cycle of four weeks. The topics and the exercises in each volume were designed to follow a treatment program schedule of four groups of psychotherapy sessions daily. However, it is possible to extend the schedule to include more groups of psychotherapy daily within each of the three volumes, because for each topic, the group leader has at least two exercise options available.

All topics have numbers that follow the treatment schedule. These numbers correspond to a specific week (e.g., week one, two, three, or four) and to specific days of the week. The group leader should use the topics in a numerical sequence in accordance with the treatment schedule provided with this book. Some exercises contain key answers, keywords, or statements at the bottom of the page. I would suggest covering them up to hide them before making copies to give to the patients. Finally, I would suggest choosing the exercises used for each topic in a numerical sequence in order to support the development of better group psychotherapy dynamics and process.

A Few Words about Group Psychotherapy

In his 1985 book, Gerald Corey provides valuable information regarding the nature and focus of group psychotherapy when he says, Group psychotherapy is a process of reeducation that includes both conscious and unconscious awareness and both the present and the past. In most outpatient settings, such as mental health centers, the main focus of group psychotherapy is in prevention. Most of the patients come to these centers with a moderate to severe level of mental illness requiring a less intensive than inpatient treatment modality to prevent further exacerbation of symptoms or hospitalization.

In general, a treatment model includes several types of group therapies. In volume 1 of this book, the model includes group psychotherapy and mental health. The group psychotherapy section is designed to help patients learn how to ventilate feelings, replace negative and irrational thoughts with positive ones, explore their potential for change, and develop independence. Volume 2 discusses self-esteem, depression, behavior, goals, insight, and medication management. The group behavioral modification section is designed to change maladaptive behaviors. Finally, in volume 3, patients learn coping skills, stress management skills, anger management skills, communication skills, and relapse prevention skills.

Benefits of Using this Book

The topics and the exercises of Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand Volumes 1—3 are the most popular and innovative that many clinicians prefer and use in outpatient as well as in inpatient settings. They have been developed to cover all kinds of group psychotherapy and have been organized in order to facilitate the work of the group leader with minimal effort required. Detailed written topics and exercises can benefit not only the patient, therapist, treatment team, and treatment setting, but also the psychotherapy profession overall.

Another important benefit of using this book is that the topics and exercises herein provide the group leader with high standards for documentation. The group session models provided contain the following five basic criteria as guidance for the patient documentation and records:

1. The patient’s conditions that support treatment services, such as the severity of the patient’s impaired level of functioning and psychiatric symptoms.

2. The patient’s observed symptoms at the time of treatment.

3. The therapeutic interventions provided to eliminate or alleviate the patient’s symptoms.

4. The patient’s response or reaction to the therapeutic interventions.

5. The patient’s symptoms or problems that need improvement.

All clinicians must ensure the appropriate documentation of delivery of psychiatric and psychological services. Today, the quality and content of the clinical record may well determine whether treatment is deemed appropriate and the level of care received by the patient is justified. The determination of whether the treatment is justified may be based solely on what is written and, in some instances, on what is not written in the clinical record. The quality of care for the patient is the most powerful argument in favor of maintaining a high quality of documentation. The quality of documentation is an essential tool in the treatment workplace. It is vital to any mental health facility’s need for stringent accountability. The documentation should detail what the patient was like initially, what happened during treatment, and what the patient is like after. It should reflect what was done and what remains to be done.

My experience has taught me that learning the skills of effective documentation can be a tedious and difficult process for many clinicians. It is more stressful to try developing this expertise when under the pressure of increased patient load and short time frames placed on clinicians today by most mental health care systems. The documentation demands can be overwhelming when we must move quickly from writing progress notes or other clinical records to other work. Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand Volumes 1—3 was developed as a tool to aid clinicians in writing progress notes in an efficient manner that are clear, specific, and individualized. The clinician benefits from clear documentation of the services provided because the topics and the exercises provide a measure of added protection from possible patient litigation.

The psychotherapy profession stands to benefit from the use of more precise, clear, creative, and organized topics and exercises to produce successful changes in the patients involved with mental health treatment.

If you create psychological documents, such as weekly reviews from master treatment plans and daily progress notes, then Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand Volumes 1—3 can make your work easier while at the same time assisting you in improving your writing skills. The exercises are designed to help you in writing inventive, tailor-made, and refreshing clinical reports.

A

Word of Caution

When you use any of the exercises in this book, including words, phrases, descriptions, sentences, or procedures described in the exercises, you must assume full responsibility for all the consequences implied as related to clinical, legal, and ethical issues. It is critical to remember that effective use of the exercises from Group Psychotherapy: Exercises at Hand Volumes 1—3 should not be mass-reproduced for every single group psychotherapy session. They should be used as a guide to help organize the clinician’s thoughts, but the exercises should be tailored to account for the clinician’s own style, clinical terminology, and