Effectiveness of Short-Term Group Therapy on Overall Mental Health of Social Workers

Group therapy dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, although brought in as a necessity, today it is widely practiced by counselors, across the globe. As compared to individual psychotherapy, group therapy has been a less researched area, especially pertaining to general health, rather than specific illnesses or behaviors. This study thus was conducted to assess the General Health Questionnaire (hereafter, GHQ) scores of participants (social workers) who were given short term group therapy, using transactional, behavioral and cognitive approaches along with mindfulness meditation, for four consecutive days. 20 participants from across India were selected using convenience sampling technique. The outcome of the Wilcoxon test approved the hypothesis (z = -2.87, p<0.005), i.e. there is a statistically note worthy distinction among the GHQ scores of participants pre and post receiving group intervention. The post test GHQ scores of the participants had a significant drop than the pretest GHQ scores of the participants, depicting an improvement in their general health.