Social Work For Support Group: Discussing Stress And Its Management

Description of the Group and Over Viewing its Purpose

Discuss about the Social Work for Support Group.

In this video, few young age boys and girls are gathered with a counsellor in order to discuss the existence of stress in their life and to know the process to overcome their stress. The chosen group for completing this assignment is Support Group and there will be discussion on stress. According to Levi (2016), more or less every individual goes through a phase of stress and on every occasion, an individual overcomes stress with proper process of stress counselling. Stress can damage the mental and physical health if it cannot be treated so long.

The purpose of this group is to offer and discuss several ways to overcome the stress in the life from various sources. From various studies, it has been proved that the students aged in between 17-25 encountered with stress than the other ranges of ages from the social life, pressure from schools including tasks, exams, schedules, family and friends (Moreland et al., 2014). This group will discuss the beginning of the pressure, which actually leads to the stress in immense manner if he pressure cannot be handled in proper and adequate manner. This young group of individual has been associated for overcoming the stress as it may lead to adopt unhealthy practices, such as drinking or smoking, which will be harmful for this young age people. The stress counsellor in this video is a professional individual, who can treat the experienced difficulties of the gathered individuals (Beebe & Masterson, 2014).

This particular video is solely based on three different questions, which are closely related to the stress and all the gathered individuals have shared their own perspective upon the stress and stress management. There is a discussion on their adopted strategies during the time of their stress and even the member of this particular group have communicated with each other for sharing own experience during the stressful situation. This group is task-oriented group and the name of this group is Support Group. Gächter et al., 2012 has mentioned that stress can be considered as the response of the body towards different demands, criteria of the life, which engages both the mind and emotions. This particular group has understood the necessity of overcoming and preventing stress as it affects the human feeling and the physical health. However, there are some contradictions among the associated group members of this video while communicating regarding different stress scenario within own life. The member often oppose and often appreciate the process of overcoming the stress of the group members.

Type of Group

The group shown in this particular video are young people from schools and there are three female and two male members. The stress counsellor has initiated the discussion and then asked the group member to provide their views regarding their experiences of stress and how they had overcome it for leading a stressful life. One by one, every group member has shared his or her experiences and visions upon it. This group can be considered as initial session of Group therapy.

This particular discussion has been continued for 8 minutes and 49 seconds and the entire discussion has been completed with a proper following of some portion such as the introductory portion, the selection of the topic and there are discussion after the asked questions of the stress counsellor. The counsellor has provided equal chance to each team member for sharing different viewpoints. As opined by Oradee (2012), often the stress level increases in manner, which is next to impossible to overcome and in such position there are requirements of effective and potential counsellor, who can help to overcome stress. This group is a true example of group interactive session, where every group member is closely interlinked with each other and share own notion on a fixed topic that is stress.

The associated members of the group are all young people from school; therefore, they are standing at the initial stage of their life. Their life has just started, therefore, if these young individuals have lost hope only because of encountering stress from their social life, family, friends, tasks, exams and other pressures, then it will lead a serious depression for them, which is not at all expected (Beard, 2016). These people should have adopted strategies to deal with stress, as with the ages, the level of stress will increase.

The group dynamics suggest that the team members are associated for achieving same motif (Trotzer, 2013). The team dynamic helps the team member to share their ideas, suggestions and visions on certain topic. However, in this particular video, the group members also do the same. Hwang & Lin (2012) have referred that the group dynamics deal with the basic behavioural patterns and attitudes of a particular group. The video suggests an interactive group session, which has been started with a introductory speech of the stress counsellor, who clearly explains the requirement of this particular group. The entire gathered group member is quite interactive with each other and it make easy for the counsellor to communicate with everybody. Every group member has been provided with equal opportunity to share their own views and any longer viewpoints are not entertained as the counsellor stops the individual, who provide a long statement regarding their experience in order to give other team member chances. The gesture and process of interaction with the other team member is appropriate for this group therapy session. Chiclana et al., (2013) have suggested both the negative and positive experiences in life can lead life transition, which is responsible to lead any kind of stress. Even in this particular video, the woman counsellor has mentioned that stress should be avoided in the life as it damages both the physical and mental health of an individual. According to Zhang et al., (2012), group dynamics are solely concerned with the process of group formation, its structure and processes of performing some tasks in order to reach the same goal. In this video, the group members also present their viewpoints on stress and its effective ways to overcome it. Even the group dynamics help to appreciate the suggestion of a team member and criticising it. The leader of this group has followed participative leadership style as this person involves every team member to take a part of the interaction and share own viewpoint upon stress.

Description of the Group

According to Shin et al., (2012), adequate and potential strategies and task should be selected for meeting the goal of creating the group discussion. In this particular video, the group member shares own experience and it actually helps them to release their stress. The strategies the leader has followed involves the team member to share brief picture of their experiences instead of elaborated version of it and to interact with maintain positive gesture, which can encourage the other group member to share their own experiences. Every team member is associated and connected with each other only because of suitable implication of strategies of the leader. The leader has played the role of participative leader with allowing every group member to share own viewpoints (Triantaphyllou, 2013). One of the group members Stephanie is quiet and calm and fails to communicate with the entire group. However, Jolene presents her own viewpoints in smooth way. The leader appreciated both of them for their participation as it encourages them for further discussion. The participative leadership style gathers the shared viewpoints of the participants of group members.

I think the effectiveness of a group suggests the capacity of a group for accomplishing the set goals, which have been administrated by the leader. I have observed that this group develop internal feelings of the close affiliation among the existing group member and it helps to enhance the loyalty among the group member after sharing own visions related stress. The size of the group also determines the effectiveness of a group and every group member has understood their roles and responsibilities within the group for accomplishing the objectives of this group. As stress is a complex subject to discuss, therefore, I have noticed that the leader in this video tries to free the group members and only engage 5 member for discussing this complex issue. I have understood that as stress has been considered as critical issue to deal, therefore, this interactive discussion will help these school going young people to overcome their encountered situations in potential manner.

Conclusion

The provided video reveals the necessity of overcoming stress with the help of interactive session and it evaluates the basic idea regarding the capacity of the individuals for dealing with several stressful situations. With the constant improvement in the contemporary lifestyle, there are gradual enhancement of the stress, which often lead and individual towards a severe level of depression and on certain occasion towards the suicidal tendency. The group member helps one another for helping them to share their experiences.

References

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Beebe, S. A., & Masterson, J. T. (2014). Communicating in small groups: Principles and practices. Pearson Higher Ed.

Chiclana, F., GarcíA, J. T., del Moral, M. J., & Herrera-Viedma, E. (2013). A statistical comparative study of different similarity measures of consensus in group decision making. Information Sciences, 221, 110-123.

Gächter, S., Nosenzo, D., Renner, E., & Sefton, M. (2012). Who makes a good leader? cooperativeness, optimism, and leading?by?example. Economic Inquiry, 50(4), 953-967.

Hwang, C. L., & Lin, M. J. (2012). Group decision making under multiple criteria: methods and applications (Vol. 281). Springer Science & Business Media.

Levi, D. (2016). Group dynamics for teams. Sage Publications.

Moreland, R. L., Levine, J. M., & Wingert, M. L. (2013). Creating the ideal group: Composition effects at work. Understanding group behavior, 2, 11-35.

Oradee, T. (2012). Developing speaking skills using three communicative activities (discussion, problem-solving, and role-playing). International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2(6), 533.

Shin, S. J., Kim, T. Y., Lee, J. Y., & Bian, L. (2012). Cognitive team diversity and individual team member creativity: A cross-level interaction. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 197-212.

Triantaphyllou, E. (2013). Multi-criteria decision making methods: a comparative study (Vol. 44). Springer Science & Business Media.

Trotzer, J. P. (2013). The counselor and the group: Integrating theory, training, and practice. Routledge.

Zhang, Z., Wang, M. O., & Shi, J. (2012). Leader-follower congruence in proactive personality and work outcomes: The mediating role of leader-member exchange. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 111-130.