MC Master of Counseling: Group Therapy Principles 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which type of group is specifically designed to be time-limited, symptom-focused, and based on cognitive-behavioral principles?
- Interpersonal process group
- Structured psychoeducational group
- CBT-based skills group (Correct answer)
- Encounter group
Correct answer: CBT-based skills group
CBT-based skills groups are structured, time-limited, and target specific cognitive and behavioral patterns.
Question 2: Scapegoating in a therapy group most often serves the function of:
- Identifying the weakest member
- Allowing other members to project disowned traits onto one person (Correct answer)
- Providing leadership to the group
- Accelerating the working stage
Correct answer: Allowing other members to project disowned traits onto one person
Scapegoating is a group defense mechanism where one member becomes a container for the group's unacknowledged feelings or traits.
Question 3: In group therapy screening, a contraindication for placing a client in an ongoing outpatient process group would be:
- Mild social anxiety
- Active psychosis with poor reality testing (Correct answer)
- History of interpersonal conflict
- Introversion and shyness
Correct answer: Active psychosis with poor reality testing
Active psychosis impairs the reality testing and interpersonal functioning necessary to benefit from and not harm group process.
Question 4: The 'installation of hope' curative factor is especially important in the early stages of group therapy because:
- It provides immediate symptom relief
- Members need to believe change is possible to invest in the process (Correct answer)
- It establishes group cohesion
- It replaces the need for other therapeutic factors
Correct answer: Members need to believe change is possible to invest in the process
Hope motivates continued engagement; without it, members are unlikely to persist through the difficult work of therapy.
Question 5: Co-leadership in group therapy is considered advantageous primarily because:
- It reduces the leader's ethical responsibility
- It provides modeling of healthy relationships and allows peer consultation (Correct answer)
- It is required by most licensing boards
- It decreases group cohesion by splitting loyalty
Correct answer: It provides modeling of healthy relationships and allows peer consultation
Co-leaders model healthy adult relating and can debrief with each other, improving clinical decision-making.
Question 6: According to ASGW Best Practice Guidelines, informed consent for group therapy should include:
- The therapist's personal treatment philosophy only
- Goals, procedures, risks, confidentiality limits, and member rights (Correct answer)
- A guarantee of positive outcomes
- The identities of other group members
Correct answer: Goals, procedures, risks, confidentiality limits, and member rights
Informed consent must cover all elements that allow clients to make an educated decision about participation.
Question 7: A group leader notices two members have formed an outside relationship. The ethically appropriate response is to:
- Immediately terminate both members
- Ignore it unless it causes visible group disruption
- Address it in the group, as it was covered in the pregroup agreement (Correct answer)
- Report it to a supervisor without discussion
Correct answer: Address it in the group, as it was covered in the pregroup agreement
Outside contact is typically addressed in pregroup agreements; the leader should process it openly in the group context.
MC Master of Counseling: Group Therapy Principles 3
Which type of group is specifically designed to be time-limited, symptom-focused, and based on cognitive-behavioral principles?