agpa is the leading organization internationally that focuses on the development and growth of the field of group Psychotherapy and the development and growth of group therapy practitioners through my involvement with the American group Psychotherapy Association u i was elected to the board of directors for the organization and was approached by the president of the organization at that time uh Robert Klein to see if I along with Joe kobal who also came on to the board at that time would co-lead a new committee called the science to Services Task Force uh a committee of 10 people uh all leaders in the field of group Psychotherapy reflecting both clinical leadership research leadership education leadership came to together all members of agpa and began to dive into the task of how do we create a template uh that will help practitioners across the board in in every jurisdiction to uh create and uh sustain group therapy that really meets the highest standards of accountability and best practice we looked at the field of group Psych therapy very broadly and determined that we were going to focus on 10 key domains that are relevant to every group practitioner who thinks about group Psychotherapy in a way that emphasizes the group as an agent for change there's a tremendous range of ways in which group interventions are applied sometimes the group is a setting for change for a psychoeducational intervention but we focused on groups that really seek to influence and shape how people see themselves uh deal with issues around uh depression anxiety trauma uh uh addictions uh and really look at how their interpersonal functioning their understanding of themselves and relationship to the world can be improved by group Psychotherapy we see the clinical practice guidelines has a tool to augment clinical judgment not to replace it but to be a guide for people to turn to when they run into a clinical problem or they're trying to address a clinical situation what do the experts say I should be doing in this situation uh if you turn to the clinical practice guidelines you'll find a section that addresses 10 key areas those areas include how do you establish groups in order to be successful how do you maximize the use of the therapeutic mechanisms a group therapy what are good protocols for selection and preparation what's the research behind each of these areas another section focuses on understanding group development and understanding how uh to engage and work with group processes which are often a big cound for people doing group therapy we have a section on what is the ideal uh stance for the group leader to take in group therapy there's another section that looks at issues around ethics and practicing in a way that respects uh ethical conduct and standards there's a section that looks at combining group therapy with other treatments many patients are in group therapy and individual therapy or group therapy in a 12-step group so we look at principles to help do that effectively and finally we have a section on how to deal with ending uh the concluding successfully of group treatment and we want people to use these clinical practice guidelines to guide themselves sometimes to help explain to administrators why they need to do things in a certain kind of way uh we've seen many situations already where people have said my administrator said you know what we can't do it this way it's too costly uh or it takes too much time take a shortcut instead of saying look this is what I feel is right people been able to say this is what the experts tell us and the evidence is that if you stimulate that reflective process on practitioners you improve their outcome what that means is that you don't have to change from being a practitioner who emphasizes a particular approach to taking on a whole different approach because people's identity often gets involved with the kind of treatment they provide but what it does mean is that these tools the clinical practice guidelines and potentially the tracking mechanisms help you to be the best therapist that you can be and learn when you're not and learn how to uh remedy that and realign it