A critical incident, as opposed to a crisis, may be described as any event that causes normally stable and healthy people to experience strong emotional or psychological distress. It is an event which may be regarded as being outside the normal range of experience and has the potential to interfere with the individual’s ability to cope during the incident or in their ability to cope at a later tim... »
Losing someone you love can be like losing one half of yourself. The pain and emptiness felt during the grieving process can go on for months or years, however no two people will ever respond to the same situation in the same way. Working through grief is a day by day, week by week process. You may have bad days when you think you will never recover from this loss. You may also think that you ... »
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive behavioural therapy developed as a treatment for self harming, particularly in borderline personality disorder (Low et al., 2001). Underpinning ideas of DBT suggest that invalidating environments that may have occurred during upbringing can inhibit the effective development of coping methods to deal with sudden intense surges of emotion (Linehan, ... »
How can we move beyond ‘schoolism’ towards a paradigm that embraces the full diversity of effective therapeutic methods and perspectives? Mick Cooper and John McLeod propose a ‘pluralistic’ approach. »
Over time, the distinction between the three terms, stress, traumatic stress, and crisis, have become blurred, thus numerous professionals started using these terms synonymously. Some authors specifically indicate that they deal with both stress and developmental crisis, but do not make distinctions between these terms/concepts. Others define their work as dealing with crisis, but take cases from... »
Click here to read Part 1 of this series… Click here to read Part 2 of this series… Group work and team building are vital at the performing stage of group development. In psycho-educational groups, teamwork and learning are promoted by emphasising how groups can achieve tasks that cannot be accomplished by individuals alone (Gladding, 2003). Groups that work to achieve consensus, promote in... »
The Storming Stage is a time of conflict and anxiety within the group as it moves from primary tension (awkwardness about being in a new and strange situation) to secondary tension (intragroup conflict between members). Each group experiences the storming process differently. Some groups may encounter all the problems associated with this period where others may only experience a few of the relate... »
A number of problems can occur during the formation of the group and afterwards. Some of these difficulties involve group members while others are related to group processes. One of the best ways to handle group problems is to prevent them. Where prevention is not possible, the group members and the group therapist can work together to bring about resolution (Gladding, 2003). Dealing with people p... »
In the last article you witnessed how easy it can be to find yourself in a relationship with someone who is practically a stranger. But you also saw how it was possible to take steps to get to know your self and your partner so as to determine whether or not you both wanted the same things from your relationship. John and Sue-Anne had taken this journey of discovery and realised that even though t... »
Theories of motivation may be viewed as being on a continuum ranging from deterministic to mechanistic to organismic to cognitive. The deterministic to mechanistic theories view humans as being passively driven by psychological needs or drives. Organismic theories acknowledge innate needs but also take into account the dialectics that occurs between the organism and their environment. »
Like most interpersonal relationships, most romantic couples experience some challenge at some point in their relationship. Some of these common challenges may include infidelity, loss of intimacy, communication difficulties, coping with stress challenges, financial pressures, boundary violations, difficulty balancing individual and couple expectations, divorce, separation and breaking up. Whateve... »
Consider this situation: John and Sue-Anne are both in their late twenties and have been married for 19 months. As a young couple they have had a lot of fun with their friends spending weekends surfing and most evenings at each other’s places. Just recently their life has entered a transition as their best friends have become parents and are no longer free to share activities with them. And at the... »
The death of a loved one is always difficult. For children, the death of a loved one can affect their sense of security. Like adults, children express loss by grieving and yet children may not demonstrate their grief openly as adults. Grief may affect their behaviour, the way in which they take in information, and their need for support. »
Like all groups, therapeutic groups change and evolve over time. Knowledge of group development can help the group therapist distinguish if members reflect personal and individual or group developmental issues. Furthermore, knowledge of how members cope in the face of group developmental issues can aid the therapist in formulating specific interventions at those times (Bernard, Burlingame, Flores,... »
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