Citation

Dueweke AR, Higuera DE, Zielinski MJ, Karlsson ME, Bridges AJ. Int. J. Group Psychother. 2022; 72(1): 1-33.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Guilford Publications)

DOI

10.1080/00207284.2021.2015601

PMID

36249160

PMCID

PMC9555233

Abstract

Survivors Healing from Abuse: Recovery through Exposure (SHARE) is an eight-week therapy group for incarcerated women who have experienced sexual violence victimization. SHARE requires each member to complete an imaginal exposure and to listen when others share their experiences of victimization. While trauma-focused group interventions including SHARE are associated with reductions in internalizing symptoms, little work has examined how group characteristics predict symptom decreases. The purpose of this study was to examine whether group size was associated with symptom changes pre- to post-treatment. Participants (n=140 across 29 groups) completed self-report measures of posttraumatic stress symptoms before and after completing SHARE. Multilevel modeling revealed the majority of the variance in post-treatment symptoms was attributed to individual factors rather than group factors. Symptom change was comparable for groups of two to eight women; declines in symptom improvement were observed at a group size of ten participants.

Language: en

Keywords

posttraumatic stress disorder; exposure; group size; group therapy; sexual violence victimization