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Structured Adolescent Psychotherapy Groups
Billie Farmer Corder
A "must read" book if you are a therapist who works with adolescents
and their families. Contains how-to-do-it guidelines for each step
in forming and leading a group including client selection and evaluation,
goal setting, evaluating group process, relationships with a co-therapist,
and more.
Provides specific techniques for use in the beginning, middle,
and end phases of time-limited structured psychotherapy groups. Offers
concrete suggestions for working with "hard to reach" and difficult adolescents,
providing feedback to parents, and dealing with administrative, legal, and
ethical issues. Includes examples of pre/post-evaluation forms, therapy
contracts, evaluation feedback letters, parent response forms, therapist
rating scales, co-therapist rating forms, problem identification forms,
supervision and session records, client and parent handouts, and specific
group exercises. It is solidly anchored to research on the curative
factors in group therapy and includes empirical data, numerous references,
theoretical formulations, and examples of group sessions.
"This book is a very welcome addition to the mental health field because
it provides a detached, clear model of group therapy written by a mental
health professional with a vast amount of clinical experience leading therapy
groups for diverse adolescent problems. This book is a gem filled with
outstanding practical and creative ways of engaging adolescents in the
therapeutic group process. her extensive focus on the therapist's role
as group leader is one of the important features of this book. The
text is comprehensive yet concise in discussing methods of integrating
adolescents with diverse cognitive, affective, and social skills and in
structuring the group process to achieve expected therapeutic goals."
*Cynthia R. Pfeffer, MD,
Professor of Psychiatry, Cornell University College and Chief, Child Psychiatry
Inpatient Unit, The New York Hospital - Westchester Division