The Group Therapist as Social Network Enhancer: A New Area of Inquiry

Incontrovertible research evidence has proven that a robust personal social network acts as a protective factor against disease, associating positively with overall wellbeing, recovery from disease, and a longer and healthier life. In turn, clinical intervention programs that include social network enhancement aimed at patients already suffering from a variety of severe disorders have shown to improve the quality of their life, included but not limited to pain management, with little impact, however, in survival. Group therapy enhances patients’ abilities to enrich their social milieu. As a natural experiment on preventive interventions, group therapies offer an unusual window to evaluate their long-term impact on patients’ sociality before possible severe somatic pathology is expressed, that is, their potential positive long-term impact of patients’ health and survival. Group therapists should adopt a rather simple standardized rou tine evaluation of patients’ personal social support and health at intake and discharge as well as systematic follow-up of former patients to explore the short and long-term impact of their clinical work with regard to patients’ sociality, overall health and a longer, satisfactory life.

Carlos E. Sluzki, The Group Therapist as Social Network Enhancer: A New Area of Inquiry in "FORUM" 5/2012, pp 39-54, DOI: 10.3280/FORU2012-005006