A Meta-analysis of Effectiveness of Group Counseling and Psychotherapies

Helping professions concern to have more effective therapies and naturally try to achieve such methods. Long years ago, a method has been formulated wich tries to improve personal and psychological problems by gathering individuals as a group, a therapy group. This method experiences ups and downs to become what we know as group counseling and psychotherpay, today. But how much effective is it? Many research and studies performed to assess its effectivenes by classic methods, like comparing them with no-therapy conditions. But one of best methods in assessing effectiveness of therapy methods is meta-analysis. Meta-analysis integrates results of various studies in order to compare the effect size of various therapeutic models. Aim of the present study is to review the effectiveness of group methods in treatment of personality and other problems, using meta-analytic method. Thus, 30 research articles and post graduate thesis included to be analyzed. Result shows that effect size of group counseling and psychotherapy is 89. This means a powerful effect size for group methods.