Traditional Therapy Group Research Articles

The assessment of individual coping capacities in a group therapy setting.

A modification of the traditional group therapy format is described, in which clinicians responsible for decisions to hospitalize or release are provided a systematic structure for assessing the degree of impairment of patient's abilities to cope with the demands of their human environment.

Group covert sensitization with narcotic addicts (further comments).

This paper will describe a program of covert sensitization presently being developed at the Narcotic Unit, Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, Connecticut. Steinfeld has previously reported work with individual narcotic addicts and with groups using the covert sensitization procedure (1970). The present report is based on further work with groups and is part of a broader therapeutic program consisting primarily of a self-help community. There are two such therapeutic communities at Danbury, each housing approximately 50 residents who spend approximately 14 months in an intensive self-help program for narcotic addicts. These men have been sentenced under Title II of the N.A.R.A. Act of 1966. The covert sensitization program is seen as one adjunct to the basic therapeutic procedure which utilizes various forms of groups, i.e., encounters, seminars, and static group (traditional therapy group), as well as other forms of behavioral approaches and sensitivity workshops. Our hope is to offer the resident...

Behavior modification in the treatment of obesity.

Current interest in behavior modification has extended to the treatment of obesity and the results of two recent applications of this technology have been encouraging. The present study compared behavior modification in groups with traditional group psychotherapy in a sample of 32 obese patients. Each of two groups treated with behavior modification lost more weight than a matched control group treated with traditional group therapy. Furthermore, 13% of the patients treated oy behavior modification lost more than 40 pounds and 53% lost more than 20 bounds, results which rank with the best in the medical literature. We conclude that behavior modification may represent a significant advance in the treatment of obesity.