Conducting Effective and Productive Psychoeducational and Therapy Groups
A Guide for Beginning Group Leaders

Conducting Effective and Productive Psychoeducational and Therapy Groups offers a four-part structure designed to prepare future and beginning group leaders for the challenges that lie ahead: Getting Started, Encouraging Productivity, Troubleshooting/Problem Solving, and Closures. Along the way, readers will find practical, step-by-step instructions and guidance; activities to promote involvement, growth, and self-understanding; as well as processes and procedures to prevent and resolve difficult behaviors. Also included are 40+ activities, a typology of difficult member profiles, strategies to increase leader effectiveness, and a chapter on toxicity among groups as well as group members.

Preface 1. Introduction to Psychoeducational Groups, Professional Responsibilities, Beginning the Group, and Ethics 2. Build a Therapeutic Self 3. Experiential Activities 4. Group Facilitation Skills 5. Group Therapeutic Factors and Developmental Stages 6. Activities: Leader Self-Development, Relationship Building, Communication Skills Development, and Therapeutic Factors 7. Culture and Diversity 8. Group Level Challenges, Problems, and Concerns9. Individual Member Challenges 10. Activities and Closure. References. Appendix A: A Sample Psychoeducational Group Plan. Appendix B: Effective Group Leader Behaviors and Attitudes. Appendix C: Behaviors and Attitudes of Effective Group Members. Appendix D: Leader Development: Emotional Sensitivity or Emotional Susceptibility?

Nina W. Brown, EdD, is a professor and eminent scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She received her doctorate from the College of William and Mary and is a member of the American Counseling Association, the Society of Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy (APA Division 49), and a Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association. Her 30+ books include Teaching Group Dynamics; Expressive Processes for Group Counseling; Group Counseling for Middle and Elementary School Children; Psychoeducational Groups (now in its fourth edition); Becoming a Group Leader; Facilitating Challenging Groups;and Creative Activities for Group Therapy. Books on other topics include The Destructive Narcissistic Pattern; Children of the Self-Absorbed (two editions); Loving the Self-Absorbed; and Coping with Infuriating, Mean, Critical People.