engleski

Disrupted development of group processes in a small high school adolescent group

Working with adolescents requires adaptation of leading techniques in small groups. Adolescents who call for help are more regressive with lowered capacity for developing trust, awareness of the subconscious, recognising and describing emotions. We present a small group of high schoolers which was formed within the programme of the daily hospital at the Department for Adolescent Psychiatry of Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka. Group was formed by 8 adolescents. It was held once a week in duration of 60 minutes. There were 14 seances in total. There is no development of group processes during the first half of the programme despite active attempts of the therapists to stop the “chaos”. During the 8th week there is a shift in group dynamics as a result of acting out by two members of the group. The group has “survived” and unified, which led to uninterrupted work till the end of the programme. We conclude that due to the difficulties in high school adolescent groups, there should be added caution in the selection criteria and the group drafting.

adolescence ; group analysis ; small group

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