LAW 531 The Downside of Group Therapy Paper

IntroductionVoorhis and Salisbury (2016) note that the most common therapy for offenders in the correctional setting is group and milieu therapy. The primary reason for its prevalence is that it costs less for a correctional counselor to work with groups of offenders than individuals. Since psychological services are often the first to be cut from shrinking budgets, treating multiple offenders at once is considered a fiscal “win” for prison management. Additionally:While there are many other advantages to group counseling, the effectiveness of this modality rests (as it often does) on the quality of the treatment, the counselor, and the therapeutic community. Without trained staff and focused program goals, group therapy may do more harm than good. For this discussion: