Facilitating Therapeutic groups in Higher Education
by Katherine Jeffs
Kate will present her work with open ended face-to-face and online therapeutic groups for eight participants in a university setting. In the Autumn 2017 she started a face-to-face group and a second group in 2019; in March 2020 she combined both groups into a single on-line group during the pandemic. She will discuss theoretical frameworks for therapeutic group work from trainings on the IGA Introductory General course in Group work and ‘Working with Psychotherapy groups’ at the Tavistock, and consider how the context of the University impacts on the theories. She will discuss the following issues: referrals, assessment, working face-to-face and on-line, breaks, the role of the facilitator, the challenges and rewards of therapeutic groups, and the effectiveness of group work as a therapy in institutional work. She will use detailed notes from observations of her clinical work and hopes to stimulate a discussion on facilitating therapeutic groups from members attending the Forum
Kate is a graduate of the Birkbeck MSc course. She previously worked in publishing and as a teacher and currently works as a student counsellor and supervisor at Westminster University.
