Group approach and analytical psychodrama in an educational-therapeutic community

Group approach and analytical psychodrama in an educational-therapeutic community for adolescents: outcomes of the first year’s work

Authors: Babolin L, Bonafede C, Bregolin K, Di Cataldo I,Gazzola F, Sechi M, Sernagiotto G, Vivolo C.

The aim of this paper is to report the outcomes obtained by the educational and rehabilitation community “Il Grande Carro” during its first year’s work and to discuss them with regard to therapeutic and educational efficacy of group approach in adolescents with psychopathological diagnosis. An intervention program has been conducted throughout the year on a real group of eight patients between 11 and 15 years, of both sexes, that are attending the daytime community for 4 or 5 afternoons per week based on the framework plan drawn up by social and health services. The group approach has been employed in many forms (analytical psychodrama, workshop, recreational groups, various activities in the surrounding area) and has been characterized by a ratio of 1 patient to 2 operators that allowed to focus on relational aspects linked to doing and to here and now dimension. Patients were evaluated at the beginning of the intervention, after 6 months and after 12 months through the administration of the Youth Self-Report for Ages 11-18 survey (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and of the form of the same survey intended for filling by the operators, the Teacher’s Report Form for Ages 6-18 (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001), with the aim of identifying possible symptomatic changes. The psychopathological profiles obtained by the syndromic scales of the two instruments (YSR/TRF), along with the clinical observation of behavior, made it possible to detect in some patients ongoing and relevant improvement in many subareas relating to social problems.

Key words: adolescence, evaluation of the effectiveness, analytical psychodrama.

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