After approximately 25 years of working in private agencies, I started a part-time private practice a few years ago focusing on my specialty area of working with clients with substance use disorders. Having worked largely with adolescents, I was looking forward to working more frequently with adults, especially after I had
Tag: Group Work
Group Work
Group counseling can serve as a powerful antidote to the isolation clients often feel, whether they’re going through infertility, addiction or a range of other issues. This can be especially true for clients with disabilities, say Sheri Bauman and Linda Shaw, co-authors of the American Counseling Association-published book Group Work
Breast cancer touches all of our lives, and I am no exception. In February 1996, I went for my first mammogram. I was only 33 at the time, but I had read about the importance of having a baseline mammogram for early detection of breast cancer. Early detection meant cure, right? As a
The group dynamic can be a counselor’s ally — a powerful setting that induces growth and change for clients. It is no different for counselors who lead groups with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and intersex (LGBTQI) clients. However, there is a void of literature and counselor training on group
When a client seeks help, often the focused, tailored nature of individual counseling is exactly what he or she needs. But sometimes there is a particular alchemy in a group. Many clients benefit from group counseling, either in addition to or instead of individual treatment. Why is that? The counselors
As of Jan. 1, there is official recognition that a cancer diagnosis can, and often does, affect a patient’s mental health. At the beginning of the year, a requirement was put in place for cancer programs to screen all patients for psychosocial distress in order to receive accreditation through the American
In a matter of months, 16-year-old “David” had gone from being a successful student to spending 12 or more hours per day playing video games. He lost his scholarship to a private school, then dropped out of school altogether, refusing to leave the couch, even to bathe. He also stopped
G roup counseling was known to be a beneficial method of treatment for substance abuse even prior to the 1935 founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, but it wasn’t until after World War II that group therapy became a widely accepted form of treatment. It was used in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient treatments,
When discussing the idea of girls in the wilderness, the topic of vulnerability comes up often. Typically it is in the context of how girls are vulnerable in fragile ways that we should protect or shelter. However, having been a teenage girl myself, and now having worked as an adolescent
The following vignette describes an actual situation that occurred in one of my diversity workshops. In addition to the vignette, I am including my thoughts/rationale and the intervention I used, as well as questions for other group facilitators to consider, group/dyad exercises and a summary that helps to place the