The Effects of Marathon Groups on the Ways Illicit Drug Users Perceive Counseling

Abstract

This research investigated the effects of five 16-hour unstructured marathon groups on changing the attitudes toward counseling of male and female imprisoned, illicit drug users. The attitudes of the participants of the marathon groups were compared on posttests to the attitudes of the participants of five matched, randomly selected control groups. The members of the marathon groups rated counseling higher than the members of the control groups on an evaluative semantic differential scale. They also rated many of the specific evaluative and potency adjective pairs of the semantic differential for counseling differently than the control group members.