Why are clients asked not to disclose specifics about their problem behaviors in group?
Clients in group are not allowed to go into detail about their problems and save this for their individual therapy session. They even use the term “target behavior” in group instead of describing the problem behavior they engaged in. This is done for four primary reasons. 1) Clients may become triggered by detailed reports of others’ problems, 2) clients may be supported by other group members and thus, inadvertently reinforced for their target behaviors, 3) going into detail about problems detracts from the primary goal of group, that is to learn and reinforce skillful behavior, and 4) disclosing about target behaviors in group can have a “contagion effect”.
