Group counseling involves rehabilitating individuals in institutions such as prisons or mental hospitals with the aim of handling and addressing their needs. It counters the hostility presented by negative group pressures that challenge rehabilitation efforts. Whereas prisons offer unique difficulties and challenges to individuals, group counseling targets those unique challenges by creating a therapeutic environment. The Counselling acknowledges that Individuals are from different backgrounds and therefore provides interventions to create a safe space for everybody through mutual support. The professionals give individuals a sense of belonging that encourages and supports them in their struggles (Ristianti et al.,2019). By sharing challenges, members minimize the feeling of isolation and have a feeling of affection and love.
Group counseling ensures individuals have cognizant behavior by looking at their behavior and values. The counseling is conducted by a trained professional who understands the nature of the job and can offer help in challenging contexts. This is because institutions face institutional and emotional challenges that affect individuals, such as limited resources and significant demand for such services. Group counseling is effective because it targets many people who benefit from it while addressing the same issues. The counseling is cost-effective and offers support by offering guidance and support to individuals concurrently, thus boosting the effects of the services (Logren et al.,.2017). By targeting groups using the same theme, people in institutional settings benefit by sharing experiences and strategies to assist in coping and develop coping mechanisms that boost their personal growth.
Characteristics of group counseling include shared experience. It means the medical professional arranges groups of people who share almost identical concerns to create a sense of identity. For example, a substance recovery group in prison would assist people in battling addiction by creating a safe environment to share their challenges and obtain sobriety. Individuals with the same experience share free-flowing conversations where each member is expected to contribute, and the professional therapist is expected to guide the conversations to make them meaningful and promote the wellness of each member. The shared experience ensures that group members support one another and live like a community by jointly making progress.
The group uses peer pressure to eradicate the criminal mind and attitudes held as individuals. Group peer pressure enables individuals to learn from one another and somehow copy each other’s coping strategies (Sucipto et al., 2021). Through engaging and interacting in prison, members can view their perspectives differently. Ideas and information discussed in groups are done with utmost trust and confidentiality, another characteristic of group counseling. To enable the members to open up freely, the trained professional should establish an environment of trust. Group members acquire a space to share critical experiences through the camaraderie spirit without the fear of being judged or information leaking to people in society.
Support and constant validation are critical in group settings. Validation is a therapeutic measure that allows individuals to feel cared for and listened to. This validation pushes people to open up without the fear of being judged. Groups validate each other by normalizing their emotions and using words of affirmation. Members are appreciated for their improvements and encouraged to share more (Yusop et al.,2020). This peer support reduces isolation and creates a sense of belonging, fostering empowerment. Empowerment in group counseling allows individuals to grow individually and discover themselves by creating goals and analyzing their lives. Such goals would mean having expectations and discovering right from wrong by creating a checklist to determine what impact, for example, a criminal life brought and what monetary value it has created. The monetary value can again be checked and listed against the period they are serving in time to determine whether it was valuable. Goal setting can be done as an exercise in the group where members list their criminal activities against the victims’ feelings. This makes members walk in the victims’ shoes amid self-discoveries and take positive steps towards change. Exercises in group counseling give members the responsibility of playing a role in their healing process and extend the learnings of the group to their daily lives and activities (Anthony, 2021). They also discover their capacities, strengths, and weaknesses and distinguish the good from the bad, enabling them to take charge of their lives.
The components of group counseling start with the formation of a group. A cohesive group is created in consideration of members’ compatibility and interests. A professional and medically trained counselor is responsible for establishing objectives, rules, and guidelines that will govern the group to steer its functionality. The guidelines indicate members’ expectations and norms, such as respect towards each other, proper listening, and promoting a non-judgmental culture. Members of the group are volunteers interviewed and screened to determine their motives for joining and help create aims to be used in the group. During the formation activity, the professional, with the help of the members, creates a list of icebreaker activities to enhance uniformity while creating a comfortable space.
Dynamics such as conflict and conflict solving, relationships within the group, and members’ interactions are vital components that help eliminate challenges and address issues that limit the group’s progress. The social processes determine the group’s strength through conflict-solving, which the counselor does. Members are also involved in skills realization and development. Active members learn traits such as leading a meaningful life, active listening, proper ways to handle conflict and express themselves, and interpersonal skills.
References
Correctional Assessment, Casework, and Counseling Anthony Walsh, Jessica Wells, Shajwzun M. Gann, (2021). Springer ISBN.13: 978-3-030-55228-2
Logren, A., Ruusuvuori, J., & Laitinen, J. (2017). Self-reflective talk in group counseling. Discourse Studies, 19(4), 422-440.
Ristianti, D. H., Danim, S., Winarto, H., & Dharmayana, I. W. (2019). The development of group counseling assessment instruments. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 8(10).
Sucipto, A., Japar, M., & Purwanto, E. (2021, November). The Effectiveness of Solution-Focused Group Counseling to Improve Psychological Well-Being of Prisoners With Self-Regulation as Its Mediators. In 6th International Conference on Science, Education and Technology (ISET 2020) (pp. 177-181). Atlantis Press.
Yusop, Y. M., Zainudin, Z. N., Ahmad, N. A., Othman, W. N. W., Surat, S., & Fung, W. S. (2020). The effectiveness of group counseling: A systematic review. Journal Of Critical Reviews, 7(13).
write