A Finger Cannot Pick Up a Stone: A one-day training on group therapy for mental-health service providers

As healing cannot occur in isolation, group work is a preferred model of intervention with vulnerable populations of all genders. Group therapy lessens the isolation faced in individual therapy, is seen as more effective in reducing shame, allows one’s testimony to be witnessed, and creates a supportive learning atmosphere that can benefit all participants. Group practice can also help facilitate community re-integration for survivors of abuse and trauma.

A Finger explores both group process as well as the skills and techniques to allow for dynamic yet safe engagement with clients. Group safety and trust, group identity formation, psycho-education vs. process engagement, strengths-based work – from “opening circle” check-ins to client testimony, this is the quintessential hands-on training for group practitioners! Combined with lecture, participants will have the opportunity to partake in exercises that approximate in vivo group experiences. A Finger will help practitioners to expand their services to group engagement – regardless of the service provided.

request training

1 day (6.5 hours).

In-person or online.

None.

Participatory! Combining lecture with small group work, role plays, video debriefings, experiential exercises.

Practitioners who facilitate or who want to facilitate group services. Best suited for mental-health professionals along with peer-support workers who facilitate group programming.

The ideal for participatory learning is 20 maximum.

9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

• Welcome and Introductions
• The Essentials of Group Therapy:The CircleEmotional IntegrityUse of RitualsUtilizing Time & Space
• Group Theory:Group Therapeutic FactorsAdvantages of Group EngagementTIM TheoryStages of Group Development
• Group Process, Structure & Experience:Building Group StructureBuilding Safety: Group AgreementsSession PlanningComponents of the Actual SessionPost-Session Components
• Techniques for Building the Group Experience:Experiential Methods:Spectrograms Circle SociometryCircle Inside a Circle4 CornersTroubleshooting Problem BehaviorsTransferential Dynamics
• Wrapping Up & ClosureGroup Take Aways!Closing RoundWell of Confidentiality
• Closing