Group Psychotherapy: Group Therapist Leadership Skills

Conducting group psychotherapy is a complex yet fascinating endeavor. To be effective, a group therapist must be intentional in their approach and implementation of interventions. Some basic skills that must be mastered include confrontation of group members and behaviors, emotional stimulation of the group and individual members, and the development and enhancement of group cohesiveness. Practical skills involve the overall structure of the group, providing feedback to members and the group as a whole, modeling effective communication and interpersonal behavior, and self-disclosure in nonjudgmental manner. A group therapist also engages members to be open about themselves and with others and displays effective interpersonal communication by working with a cotherapist to model both interpersonal bonding as well as effective conflict resolution that can be generalized to the outside world. This review contains 1 table and 16 references. Key Words: cotherapy, emotional expression, executive function, feedback, group leader skills and values, male and female co-therapists, self-disclosure, skills and interventions