THREE INNOVATIVE USES FOR THE GROUP MODALITY
I. Study 1 - Psychodrama technique in detox
Estes, D. (1988). Practical help for the practitioner. Journal of Psychotherapy, Psychodrama, and Sociometry, 41(1), 36-38.
This article discusses practical, yet innovative strategies for group psychotherapy with patients in a medical detox unit. The author points out that such groups tend to be quite heterogeneous with respect to drug use and age. Some patients are young, and fairly new to substance abuse, while others are in their late middle age and virtual "veterans" of drug abuse. Thus, the need is for strategies that all group members can relate to and thus deal with their abuse problem in a therapeutic manner.
Estes has noted that when patients are allowed to set their own level of involvement, one strategy appears to stand out as effective. He describes the strategy as one in which the patient picks out the person each feels has been most affected by the patient's abuse problem. Patients then participate in a therapist-led guided fantasy in which they confront the person. The aim of the strategy is to use patients' sense memories of the person so that they have in their minds a clear impression of how the person moves, smells, looks, etc. Estes states that the strategy assists the patients to experience the other person's love, support, hurt, and anger, and this in turn gives the patients a clearer understanding of the consequences of their actions on others. Further, it tends to make the group more cohesive.
What is innovative about the strategy discussed by Estes is its us as a mans of making a fairly heterogeneous group cohesive. One of the most important aspects of the therapeutic group process is cohesiveness; this because it is from the sense of closeness that is group cohesiveness that group members can reach out and offer one another support (Yalom, 1985). Moreover, the sense of trust and mutual sharing th...