Getting Started in Healthier Relationships: Brief Integrated Dynamic Group Counseling in a University Counseling Setting

Abstract Increasingly, demands are placed on counselors and therapists to provide briefel; more focused treatment. This article argues that principles of individual thempy can be easily integrated with techniques of group thempy in an eight-session counseling group. The authors outline ways of combining these approaches during all phases of group development toprovide a focus that promises to accomplish more in less time than existinggroup models. In this model, brief dynamic therapyprinciples lay the foundation for a concrete focus during screening and pregroup orientation sessions Duringearlygroup sessions, interpersonal theory provides the means for illuminating dynamics relevant to this focus. During later session% solution-focused techniques shift the focus away from what is wrong at an interpersonal level to what is already working for members. Although this model is not yet empirically validated, the authors conclude that combining these approaches helps sharpen the focus on participants' relevant goals.