Your textbook introduced the concept that group counseling can produce negative as well as positive results for clients and that the potency of group counseling can produce causalities. Describe what the term causality means in this context. Then

Question

describe at least two things that group counselors can do to prevent group causalities.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Although group counseling does not seem to be any more dangerous than other counseling interventions, it still does produce casualties. Thus, in light of the ethical imperative of nonmaleficence, professional counselors must learn how to minimize group counseling casualties, which result from two sources: poor pre-group screening and misguided counselor actions. In addition, I will discuss casualty prevention.

(a) Screening. Professional counselors cannot conduct a proper pre-group screening without knowledge of group counseling contraindications. Contraindication refers to a client’s symptom, condition, or circumstance that warns against taking some course of action (Barker, 1995). Fortunately, group counseling researchers have catalogued a number of contraindications for COUN and THRP interventions. In reference to the COUN and THRP modalities, Toseland and Siporin (1986) detailed three types of contraindications: practical barriers, specific treatment needs, and client personality functioning. To aid practitioners in screening clients for COUN and THRP group counseling interventions, we will examine these three areas in greater detail.

(b) Remove practical barriers. Toseland and Siporin (1986) listed the following practical barriers to prescribing group counseling:
1 . Lack of clients with similar issues
2 . Clients’ resistance to a group counseling prescription
3 . Scheduling problems
4 . Lack of qualified counselors
5 . Lack of agency or school support

(c) Review clients’ treatment needs. In terms of clients’ treatment needs, some clients, such as those in crisis and those with a high potential for suicide, need more immediate one-on-one attention than group counseling can provide (Gazda et al., 2000). Also, some clients may have an authentic need for a private therapeutic setting in which to discuss a highly sensitive issue or critical decision (Toseland & Siporin, 1986).

(d) Clients’ personality factors. Many personality factors can contraindicate an assignment to group counseling. In their study of group counseling outcomes, Budman, Demby, and Randall (1980) encountered one treatment casualty—a client who had scored high on scales measuring interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid thinking, and psychotic thinking. Similarly, other researchers have commented that strong contraindicators for group counseling include extreme interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid thinking, and psychoticism.

(e) Evaluate client’s motivation. Researchers also have consistently indicated that low motivation for change is a strong contraindicator for group counseling (Crown, 1983). Consequently, professional counselors should take care to assess this obvious but often forgotten client characteristic. See Gusella, Butler, Nichols, and Bird (2003) for an excellent discussion of the measurement of this variable for group counseling.