HOW IS THE GROUP USEFUL TO THE PATIENTS IN A GROUP THERAPEUTIC PROCESS OF BASIC BODY AWARENESS THERAPY?
Bergen University College
Basic Body Awareness Methodology – Exam: Final Project, October 2007
Student: Maria Lindbeck, reg. PT, Gothenburg, Sweden
Tutor: Liv Helvik Skjaerven, Associate Professor
Purpose: The aim of this report is to explore the presence of the therapeutic factors, described by Yalom, in the group therapeutic process of Basic Body Awareness Therapy (BBAT). The findings will be related to how the patients in the BBAT-group have experienced the group as useful in their own processes.
Relevance: In my work as a physiotherapist within the psychiatric field I use BBAT in individual- and group- treatment. Questions about how to create the most favourable climate and design of the group treatment has been raised by me and my colleagues. Gradually I have been more interested in the relating aspects in the group. My curiosity awakened reading about Yalom´s therapeutic factors. In the factors I saw an evidence based tool that could give more information on the group therapeutic change in the BBAT-group.
Participants: In total 14 patients have been participating in the group treatment, participating shorter or longer periods. The BBAT-group has consisted of psychiatric outpatients and patients from the primary care. The diagnoses of the patients have been depression, anxiety, PTSD and stress related depression. An existing BBAT-group at our unit was used in this report.
Methods: The research method is qualitative, phenomenological.
Analysis: The data on the group therapeutic process has been collected from paper journal and diary notes and analysed with a qualitative, phenomenological method. The Nominal Group Technique has been used to collect the patients´ experiences.
Results: The therapeutic factors are clearly present in the group therapeutic process of BBAT. The most frequent factors analyzing the group therapeutic process were interpersonal learning, group cohesiveness and installation of hope. In the responses of the patients the factors interpersonal learning, universality, group cohesiveness and installation of hope were present, ranked in this order considering importance. In the analysis there were more of the different therapeutic factors (10) compared to in the patients´ responses (4).
Conclusion: The results are in agreement with research evidence that indicates that the power of the interactional outpatient group emanates from its interpersonal properties, describing interpersonal interaction/exploration and group cohesiveness as the essential components of effective group therapy. This study is not large enough to make any final conclusions on the subject; it is as a beginning of finding common traits in how the therapeutic factors are present in the therapeutic process of a BBAT-group with outpatients with varied psychiatric diagnoses. Future studies may be directed towards how patients in BBAT-groups would rank the 11 therapeutic factors, to find out the comparative values of the factors to the patients. A larger number of patients would be needed to make more profound conclusions.
Implications: The integration of the therapeutic factors in physiotherapeutic group treatment is crucial to be able to use the group as a resource to improve the individual patient’s treatment outcome.
Funding acknowledgements: This work was unfunded.
Keywords: Basic Body Awareness Therapy, Physiotherapy, Therapeutic Factors