Group Exercises for Addiction Counseling

The activities were helpful to my patients.

Awesome

First off, I wish before I wasted 20 dollars on an 144 page book that I had seen how tiny it was. It is also half the size in terms of length/width of pages of a normal book, and the font is huge. This is like 3-4 blog posts worth of information.A lot of the group activities were really based and barely counted as exercises (have everyone go around and say how they will exhibit self-care this weekend? Really? Isn't that actually just a normal checkout?) One of the listed group closers is saying "We're done for today." Really? This is something I could have considered!The Good:A few activities in here are decent, you just have to pick through a lot of chaff. Some of the activities would be great if I worked in a residential setting, but I personally cannot take my group members to a cemetary/grill outside, etc.

This book is an excellent resource for group activities that are very versatile. I enjoyed borrowing this from a coworker many times and finally decided to order my own copy. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Miller recently and she is very devoted to her work and the teaching of other in the field and it shows through in her personality and her writing. This book gives many suggestions and activities that can be done in many groups from IOP to short term and even residential. It also has a variety under each subject matter so you can have variety when working with you clients which is very helpful to have. Thanks Dr. Miller!

This supplemental book may be of service to beginners, however I was hoping for it to have a substantial amount of ideas with a fairly good amount of information for processing with the group, however this book does not provide that. It actually states inside why it doesn't go into processing questions but I found that defeating to the book as many of these exercise ideas are found with a simple google or pinterest search. The book was also incredibly small in size overall was very lacking. It's a nice little summary booklet but not of deep substance.

Very disappointed, I would not use 80% of the exercises presented. They are more suitable for youth. I expect that I would get more use out of these exercises as "party icebreakers". In addition, many of the activities are too generalized and not specific enough for addiction treatment. And of those that are specific, many of them center around writing/journaling exercises that are then read out loud. I'm sorry, but this is not a way to have dynamic group activities. Also, this book is only slightly bigger in size than my cell phone. The exercises comprise only about 50% of the entire tiny 127 pages. I'm disappointed that I spent $20 on this. Not worth the money."

I use this book in my work with adolescents in a substance abuse residential treatment program. Some of the activities have to be slightly modified for adolescents, but most activities work great just the way she has them written. These activities are easy to plan for, use, and process. All the activities can be modified and the discussions of the activities can also be modified to suit whatever need you have. Anyone who leads/facilitates group therapy for people with mental health or substance abuse will benefit from this book.

I have used this book a great deal with student interns and registered interns seeking licensure in social work or mental health. It is a great tool to assist beginning therapists in process groups as well as psycho-educational groups. The book is easy to read and easy to apply. I have encouraged many therapists to purchase this text and they have and not one has been disappointed. Even as a seasoned clinician, I picked up a few ideas to develop group skills and encourage discussion.

This wasn't for me, but the guy I got it for said it was brilliant.

Great help

Good

It was somewhat useful, however I found the majority of the exercises would not be useful in the group sessions I facilitate (1 hour drop in discussion groups). I will use some of the ideas however and perhaps try and adapt some of the other ideas.

This is an extremely helpful book. I am using it in my group work. I would recommend it to anyone who is leading small counseling.groups.