During Wednesday’s webinar Group Psychotherapy for Gambling Disorder, Dr. Samuel Peter explained the difference between one-on-one treatments and group meetings.
“We’ve got the relationships between each provider and each patient,” Peter said during Wednesday’s event, hosted by the International Center for Responsible Gambling. “…You have these relationships between the patients, and then at meta level, you have these us-and-them dynamics that can unfold right where you have the providers and the group. Each of those different types of relationships you can think of as being an avenue for intervention.”
Peter, who works with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and has a private practice in Durham, North Carolina, provided an overview of group psychotherapy for gambling disorder with a primary focus on Cognitive Therapy (CBT) group interventions.
One of the advantages of group therapy to treat gambling disorders is the ability to share information with other members of the group. Peter recounted how a group he worked with had a member who relapsed. Another member of the group felt compelled to share his own experiences, saying, “I think you’re being a little hard on yourself” instead of casting him as a failure.
“What you have right there is you have information being shared from one group member to another group member,” Peter said. “And really, what they’re doing is they might not use these words, but they’re practicing cognitive restructuring out loud with each other. And they’re getting to practice their communication skills. These things are playing out in the room between one person and another person, and in that moment, you, as facilitator, might essentially be sitting back and letting it play out in the laboratory.”
Peter spoke of another person who insisted he was alone and isolated, and there was no one to help him. Then he asked for a pencil that was just out of reach.
“Oh, it looks like asking for help. Maybe you can do it,” said another member of the group.
“These are the kinds of interpersonal moments you can have in group therapy that you don’t always have in individual therapy,” Peter said.
Peter explained that it’s helpful to think of group therapy as a means to create an entity. Thus, a sense of cohesion develops, and that increases the likelihood of somebody having a positive experience within and outside of the group.
How do therapists foster this?
“You can ask questions like, well, how does the group feel about this? Does the group have anything that they might want to offer here? How is this landing with the group right now?” Peter said. “You have increased that sense of cohesion when people start talking about the group, I have a number of people that I see for one-on-one therapy who I also have in group therapy, and you wouldn’t believe how often they say things like, I really thought about gambling, but I didn’t want to come back to the group and tell them what happened.”
