Facilitating an Effective Process in Treatment Groups with Persons Having Serious Mental Illness

Abstract

Many treatment groups for persons with serious mental illness are effective in achieving member goals of improved coping with symptoms and enhanced interpersonal relationships. However, while interaction-oriented groups are consistently found to be superior to insight-oriented groups in this regard, few authors have articulated the specific activities and skills required of leaders to insure an effective group process leading to those outcomes. The authors in this article delineate essential leader responsibilities for this type of group work in an effort to detail practice interventions for social work group leaders. Case examples are included.