NCJ Number
158774
Date Published
1993
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the group counseling program provided by the Day Training Center, a large centralized resource serving adult offenders from the entire Inner London Probation area in England.
Abstract
The work mixes intense closed morning groups with afternoon workshops in which clients choose specific practical skills or adult education courses they wish to pursue. The offenders referred to the center experience a range of difficulties, including relationship problems, sexual confusion, traumatic memories of childhood, anger, envy, and denial or loss of contact with reality. The group is closed and meets 2.5 hours each morning. The entire 12- week experience is often one or working through major resistance toward an experience of resolution and growth. The focus is on personal responsibility, widening of choices, the importance of individual curiosity about self and others, movement towards honest expression of feeling, and freedom from role. Although this method considerably increases the choices that clients can make about their future behavior and lifestyles, quantifying changes is difficult. The center's probation task remains psychodynamic group work emphasizing here-and-now communication and member responsibility.