group therapy assignment

Group Conseling Programs for Self Esteem in Adolescent Girls

LaQuisha Neal

5832 – Group Counseling

11-15-18

Professor Rob. Eubanks

Group Conseling Programs for Self Esteem in Adolescent Girls

Introduction

The feelings and thoughts that people have around their though process is known as self f esteem. Adolescent stage is a crucial time in human development when people test their limits, ecplore their values and figure out who they really are. The self esteem of teenage girls is very important during this developmental stage, as many suffer from low self esteem levels as well as identity conflict. Girls are known to experience life events that affect their lives either in a positive or negative way during the adolescent stage. Self esteem comprises of two major components- efficacy and self worth. Efficacy is linked to a person’s belief that he or she is capable of performing activities while feeling the need to live can be considered self worth. (Mohamed, 2017). Adocating for teenagers to increase high level of self worth is a daunting task that therapists must not only be aware of but also be ready to undertake. It is for this reason that this paper proposes group therapy for increasing self esteem among teenage girls.

Group Goal and Objectives

Group goal

The group aims at increasing self esteem by helping teenage girls on how they can explore their identity based on the 5 factors of creative and physical self, essential self, coping self as well as social self in the Indivisible Self Model for wellness. The program will explore members’ current skills, strengths and provide them with new skills on how to improve their self esteem. In particular, the program intends to promote internal sense of self worth as well as help members grasp acceptance, coping skillsn and commitment training model. Also, members will acquire mindfulness skills.

Group Objectives

Objective 1: To help members develop high level of self esteem. Hawton, Saunders and O'Connor, (2012) indicates that adolescent stage is a period characterized by identity conflict and attack to self esteem. With healthier interpersonal relationships, coping skills, and higher self esteem can improved life decision that can contribute to positive behavior.

Evaluation of Goal and Objective: The therapist will assess the post group test score using the Coopersmith Self-esteem School Inventory Short Form to measure whether or not members are developing high self esteem levels.

Objective 2: To help members learn stress management coping strategies via mindfulness based practices. According to Thompson (2014) “coping self is the only wellness factor related to the other 4 components of self esteem, namely: stress management, self worth, leisure plus realistic beliefs.” They empressed the need for therapists to incorporate the aspects of coping skills with teenagers. Mindfulness based training is not only effective, but also successful in reducing stress, improving an individual’s attention and sense of happiness, as well as increasing self awareness and purpose.

Evaluation of Goal and Objective: Therpist will measure the post group test scores using the Complete Ways of Coping Queationnaire and the 26-item Self Compassion Scale

Objective 3: To help members identify their strengths plus positive attributes by utilizing the Invincible Self Model of Wellness. Hollingsworth (2015) asserts that focusing on a person’s lower wellness and highest wellness areas can lead to strength based intervention required for building self esteem as well as recognizing the nature of wellness. This demonstrates the value of promoting the development of wellness factors.

Evaluation of Goal and Objective: Compare the post group test using the Wellness Evaluation Lifestyle and assess whether or not members can identify the five factors of Indivisible Self Model of Wellness which include social, creative, essential, coping as well as physical.

Objective 4: To help members recognize the power of making personal decisions with regards to life planning as well as creative self factor. Hollingsworth (2015) asserts that interventions that focus on creative factors can help in improvement of a person’s academic performance as well as self esteem. By focusing on personal choices, one can enhance his or her sense of personal power and increase his or her self esteem.

Evaluation of Goal and Objective: Completion of the Indivisible You Workbook and identification of the acceptance and commitment training concept of committed action as well as value directed goals.

Group Format

According to Hawton, Saunders and O'Connor (2012), children and teenagers can benefit from self esteem based therapeutic interventions. In particular, the persons who are more likely to benefit from such interventions are those with internalizing problems like anxiety or depression, those with externalizing problems like overtly behavioral issues and those with lower self esteem levels. Mohamed (2017) postulates that lower self esteem levels normally affect teenage girls and is associated with various negative items. With this in mind, Haen and Aronson (2016) assert “that the important inclusion factor in the formation of a successful therapeutic group is that the clients must be interested as well as motivated to participate in a particular group.” Haen and Aronson (2016) further posit that group therapists must screen prospective members to ascertain whether or not they are appropriate to the kind of group therapy being provided. Also, the needs and goals of the members must be compatible with the program’s goals and objectives. Based on these factors, the facilitator of this therapeutic group will complete the screening process for prospective members who have expressed their interest in joining the program.

As such, the inclusion criteria will include: identification of externalizing and/ or externalizing problem, as identified by the teenager, parent or teacher; the client must be a female aged between 15 years and 17 years old; and she must demonstrate lower self esteem levels as demonstrated by the Cooper Self Esteem School Inventory short form. Also, she must personally indicate that she is not only interested in attending the program, but also ambition to assist group members. Most importantly this psychoeduational group, which comprises of 9 members, will follow a structured week to week standard format. Members will have enough time to process the covered topics and utilized interventions. Each session will provide an overview of the program’s objectives and show the previous week’s activities with future lesson plan.

Group Leadership and Counseling Theory

Leadership is a major issue in therapy and there are various leadership theories such as the Great Man leadership approaches, the behavioral leasership approaches, and attribute leadership approaches that can be used by a therapist in group counseling. Other approaches are the situational leadership approaches, the transformational leadership approaches, the diversity approach and the learning leadership approaches (Fassinger & Shullman, 2017). This program’s group facilitator will utilize the transformational leadership style for group counseling. In the transformational leadership approach, Fassinger and Shullman (2017) assert that the leader’s “concern for the followers is beyond rewarding of performance. This style of leadership is defined by how a leader influences as well as empowers his or her followers.” The leader enhances followers’ choice of value and the significance of resposibility, provides a group vision that is larger than one individual and stuimulates the need for achieving the higher order needs

The facilitator will utilize the cognitive behavioral therapy to find a connection between thoughts, feelings plus behavior. Liu and Wang (2017) assert that therapists use cognitive behavioral therapy to identify as well as change dysfunctional patterns. It is normally used with teenagers to confront as well as modify distorted believes that teenagers develop about themselves. A teenage girl who has low self esteem levels may search for evidences that reinforces the belief thereby distorting her beliefs, attitudes as well as behaviors. Liu and Wang (2017) posit that a therapist can use cognitive behavioral therapy to help a client identify the unhealthy thought patterns resulting in the mental health problem. Cognitive behavioral therapy can enable a teenager learn how interpret his or her environment differently. This therapeutic technique is problem focused implying that it deals with the current issues and it can provide various benefits like improvement of communication with others, reduction of fears and phobia, improvement of self esteem, identification of positive responses to stress and changing of negative thought patterns.

Ethical Group Practices

Group therapists encounter distinct ethical concerns that are different from the ones experienced in one on one counseling setting (Thomas & Pender, 2008). With this in mind, in as much as the group facilitator must adhere to the code of ethics governing he or she conducts himself or herself in individual therapy setting, he or she should abide to the code of ethics that is created for group setting such as the American Group Psychotherapy Association. The American Counselling Association (2014) some of the common ethical issues are confidentiality, counseling relationship, privacy, professional responsibility, evaluation, relationship with other professionals and interpretation and assessment of problems. Others include training, supervision, and teaching of counselors, distance counseling, research and publication, social media as well as technology.

With regards to counseling relationship, the group facilitator will respect the dignity as well as promote the welfare of members and allow clients to make informed consent as to whether or not they wish to enter into and continue in the counseling relationship. Also, the facilitator will avoid any sexual relationship with and any harm to group members. With regards to a client’s confidentiality and privacy, the facilitator will respect members’ rights irrespective of multicultural differences and only release a member’s private information by informed consent. The facilitator will aspire to open, accurate as well as honest communication when dealing with group members and other professionals to maintain professionalism.

In addition to the American Counselling Association, counselor must also adhere to the Association for Specialists in Group Work group facilitator training guideline. The  Association for Specialists in Group Work provides that group therapists must have completed the core group training components (Thomas & Pender, 2008).This program’s facilitator is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Counseling which comprises of group counseling as well as process skills. Moreover, the  Association for Specialists in Group Work provides that group facilitators must understand that participating in ethical practices requires contiuous professional development, training as well as supervision (Thomas & Pender, 2008). The facilitator of this program will be supervised during the length of the group counseling, and utilize interventions at the counselors competence levels.

Summary of Diversity Integration

One of the primary reasons of participating in ethical group therapy is to be knowledgeable of, incorporating the multicultural diversity issues into group therapy sessions (Thomas & Pender, 2008). There are specific ways that the facilitator of this program will incorporate multicultural diversity discussions into the group and undertand the impact impact of cultural diversity on group process. First, the pre-screening phase includes an exercise in which prospective a member is requested to write a word describing what it means for him or her ro feel accepted. From here the facilitator will explore the meaning as well as backgrounds that a member attribute attributes to whatever he or she needs to feel accepted.

When laying down the primary group rules, the facilitator will incorporate an assessment of different types of behavior as well as the rules followed by members at home. The first session will include an interaction among group members about the similarities as well as differences that the facilitator as well as each members brings with him or her into the group. In the twelfth session, the facilitator will perform an activity centered on the role of family plus family values in creating self concept. The facilitator will also spend some time during the supervision as well as debrief sessions to reflect on on how his or her cultural background is impacting his oe her underatnding of the group members as well as the intervention he or she is selecting.

Conclusion

Adolescence stage is a period where people increasingly think about themselves and whatever they would want to be. During this developmental phase, there are various attacks on a person’s self esteem. By utilizing various evidence based interventions such as mindfulness activities and cognitive behavioral therapies in developing this group, the author hopes that these can help equip teenage girls in group therapy with the knowledge, skill as well as understanding on how to grow into adulthood with high self esteem levels as well as well as strong sense of self belief.

References

American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA code of ethics as approved by the ACA governing council. Alexandria, VA: Author

Fassinger, R. E., & Shullman, S. L. (2017). Leadership and counseling psychology: What we should know? Where could we go?. The Counseling Psychologist, 45(7), 927-964

Haen, C., & Aronson, S. (Eds). (2016). Handbook of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy: A Practitioner’s Reference. Abingdon Thames, UK: Taylor & Francis.

Hawton, K., Saunders, K. E., & O'Connor, R. C. (2012). Self-harm and suicide in adolescents. The Lancet, 379(9834), 2373-2382.

Hollingsworth, M. A. (2015). Wellness: Paradigm for training and practice. Ideas and Research You Can Use: VISTA, 39, 1-19.

Liu, J., Nie, J., & Wang, Y. (2017). Effects of group counseling programs, cognitive behavioral therapy, and sports intervention on internet addiction in East Asia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International journal of environmental research and public health, 14(12), 1470-1478

Mohamed, S. M. (2017). Effect of cognitive behavioral treatment program on anxiety and self esteem among secondary students. American Journal of Nursing Science, 6(3), 193-201

Thomas, R. V., & Pender, D. A. (2008). Association for specialists in group work: Best practice guidelines 2007 revisions. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 33(2), 111-117.

Thompson, P. P. (2014). Stress Management, choices, and self-confidence. MSW Capstones. Paper 13, 1-40.