Group Facilitation and Counseling
School of Professional Psychology and Health ICPW 5636 2.00
This course will study the theory and practice of group psychotherapy, focusing on the principles of group dynamics, formation and development and understanding and developing advanced group leadership skills from various group leadership styles and approaches. Therapeutic factors of group work, group process components, developmental stage theories, and common critical incidents and special problems in group structure and development, including the recognition and management of conflict, “the antigroup”, will be addressed. Ethical, legal, and professional concerns and issues of diversity will be discussed, as well as the importance of recognizing, managing, and utilizing transference and countertransference in groups and therapist self-care during conflict and confrontation. Students will be offered both didactic and experiential presentations on group development, process, and dynamics through lecture, videos, class discussion, and demonstrations of select theoretical approaches by the instructor in which students may elect to participate as both “group members” and “co-therapists”. Among various theoretical approaches to be discussed and demonstrated will be: Transpersonal, Psychodynamic, Gestalt, Adlerian, Psychodrama, Rogerian, Somatic approaches, Art Therapy, Active Dreamwork, and Clinical Hypnotherapeutic approaches. Pertinent research and literature, group counseling methods, and evaluation of effectiveness will be presented. There will be a final project highlighting the development of a group of the student’s preference, due one week after the last class meeting. ICPW student
