The purpose of the proposal is twofold: 1) substantiate pilot data that suggest that depressives are less able than nondepressives to process group therapy interactions, and 2) further test the instrument that has indicated these pilot findings. This instrument consisted of ten videotaped simulations of typical group therapy interactions, 60-90 seconds in length. Half the vignettes involved the subject in the interaction and half did not. Process comments were solicited after each of the vignettes was presented randomly. These comments were audiotaped and later rated on the extent to which they reflected processing qualities and accuracy. As predicted from research on analogous abilities, the pilot study showed that the processing comments of a sample of major depressives (n=9) were rated significantly lower than the comments of a matched sample of normal subjects, despite the use of memory for the interactions as a covariate. Depressive commentary was judged as less explanatory of immediate group interactions and father from an expert's view of the process. Interrater reliability was higher than the .80 level using Cohen's kappa. Grant funds are being sought to more rigorously study these findings. An investigation similar to the pilot study is proposed except that: a) a more appropriate nondepressed control group will be tested; b) a sample of minor depressives will be included; c) the n for each group will be increased to 16; and d) the possible confounding factors of subject verbal ability and vignette realism will be measured. It is hypothesized that the group of major depressives will show the poorest level of processing ability, followed by the minor depressed and then nondepressed groups, in spite of the statistical partialling out of the covariance of possible confounding factors.
| Slife, B D; Sasscer-Burgos, J; Froberg, W et al. (1989) Effect of depression on processing interactions in group psychotherapy. Int J Group Psychother 39:79-104 |
