Group Process in the Single-Gender Women's Recovery Group Compared With Mixed-Gender Group Drug Counseling

Abstract

Enhanced affiliation among members is thought to provide increased support for women in single-gender compared with mixed-gender group therapy for substance use disorders (SUDs) and to provide a potential mechanism of action for its efficacy. In a Stage I trial of single-gender versus mixed-gender group therapy for SUDs, we examined affiliative statements made by members in 2 group treatments—the single-gender Women's Recovery Group (WRG) and mixed-gender group drug counseling (GDC). Twenty-eight WRG and 17 GDC group therapy tapes were coded and compared for 5 types of affiliative statements. Three types of affiliative statements (agreement, supportive, and completing a thought) were highly correlated and were more frequent in WRG than in GDC (d = 0.882, p = .27). In GDC, women were more likely to provide an affiliative statement to a male group member than any other combination of directionality (p < .01). Compared with mixed-gender group therapy, single-gender group therapy for SUDs may enhance support through greater frequency of affiliative statements.

KEYWORDS:

• treatment for women
• women-only programs
• mixed-gender programs
• treatment outcomes
• group therapy

Acknowledgments

Support for this study was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse R01 DA015434 and K24 DA019855. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Julia S. Kaufman and Sara Wigderson for their help with manuscript preparation.