HOSTILITY AND SILENCE IN CLIENT-CENTERED GROUP THERAPY WITH ADULT OFFENDERS

Abstract

The application of group methods to the task of rehabilitating the offender received its major pioneering impetus at a historic meeting of the American Psychiatric Association chaired by Dr. William Alanson White on May 31, 1932 when J. L. Moreno introduced the term "group psychotherapy" and the concept to a skeptical audience.1 In the course of the ensuing three decades, group therapy in the correctional setting has become "our most useful tool . . . in helping offenders resolve deep-seated problems" in the words of the venerable Dean of American penologists, the Hon. Austin MacCormick, who recently hailed Moreno as "the father of group psychotherapy in prisons.
However, group therapy with offenders presents problems that are unique to working with a generally hostile, antagonistic, resistant population, and it is the purpose of this paper to describe and analyse an experience in the use of the client-centered approach with adult offenders in a large metropolitan community.