Pretraining in Group Process Skills: Impact on Anger and Anxiety in Combat Veterans

Abstract

Anxiety, anger, and interpersonal group process skills were examined for participants who were involved and uninvolved in pretraining. Pretraining involved introducing important group process skills, in a group format, prior to each of eight anger management group sessions. Leader and blind observer ratings indicated significantly higher occurrences for all interpersonal group variables trained, except participation, for pretrained group participants as compared to attention control group participants. For member ratings, only participation and solution-focused behavior were significantly higher for the pretraining group than for the control group. Significant pre-post differences were noted in self-reported anxiety following the anger management intervention for the pretraining group, but not the control group. Leader and blind observer ratings of group-member interpersonal behaviors were significantly correlated for all variables, whereas self-ratings were correlated only to observer-rated participation and to observer- and leader-rated solution-focused behaviors.

Keywords:

• pretraining
• post-traumatic stress disorder
• veterans
• group therapy
• therapy techniques