Large group therapy

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Large group therapy involves a therapist/therapists working with more than 10-12 people at a time. In this context the group dynamics become more chaotic than is usual in the more managed context of regular group therapy settings and crowd phenomena become more apparent. For this reason it is not usual to run such groups as a psychotherapy service, although they are useful for limited training purposes because the dynamic issues are perhaps more obvious.

Their main use in clinical practise is for the delivery of practical information in a didactic context that limits the playing out of group dynamics.

Examples would include

• White's anxiety management sessions given to groups of sixty.(White 2001)
• Brown's Stress management workshops with groups of 25-60
• Cunningham's Parenting skills workshops with groups of 30 (Cunningham et al 1995)

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Key texts

Papers

• Brown, J.S.L., Cochrane, R. & Hancox (2000). Large scale health promotion workshops for the general public. A controlled evalualion. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 28, 139-151.
• Brown, J.S.L., Cochrane, R., Mack, C.F., Leung, N. & Hancox, T. (1998). Comparison of effectiveness of large scale stress workshops with small stress/ anxiety management training groups.Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy. 26, 219-235).
• Cunningham, C.E. Bremner, R. Boyle, M. (1995). Large Group community-basedparenting programs for families of preschoolers at risk for disruptive behaviour disorders: Utilization, cost-effectiveness, and outcome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,36, 1141-1159.
• Gray, A. & White, J. (1998). Can large scale anxiety management groups be regarded as true therapy? Clinical Psychology Forum. 115, 30-33.
• Hawker, D.S.J.(2007) Group Psychotherapy: Big is beautiful. Clinical Psychology Forum, 175,41-43
• Munro, F. & MacPherson. G. (2001). Anger management fast-track: A waiting list initiative utilizing a large group format. Clinical Psychology Forum 147, 30-34.
• White, J., Keenan, M., & Brookes, N. (1992). Stress control: A controlled comparative investigation of large group therapy for generalised anxiety disorder. Behavioural Psychotherapy, 20, 97-114.

Additional material

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