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The Consortium for Group Research and Practice—C-GRP—is composed of faculty and students from two Ph.D. programs in counseling and clinical psychology and two internships all approved by the American Psychological Association (APA). C-GRP is the meeting ground for both academic and clinical faculty as well as students from these sites who are interested in advancing clinical and empirical knowledge of small group treatments and also applying them in daily practice to improve clinical outcomes of patients. Our research focuses on summarizing the efficacy and effectiveness of small group treatments with different clinical populations as well as advancing the use of measures—namely of practice-based evidence—in the clinical practice of group treatment. We have active collaborations with a number of a number of academic and clinical sites scattered around the world but the bulk of our research comes from the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) center at BYU and the Utah State Hospital; both support APA internship training programs. Our lab has mentored scores of doctoral students in counseling and clinical psychology over the years and engaged a few thousand undergraduate students as research assistants.

C-GRP Recognition

  • One of the internships associated with C-GRP—CAPS—won the American Psychological Association’s Division 49 (Society of Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy) Excellence in Group Practice Award. Check out the announcement here.
  • Dr. Gary Burlingame was the 2018-19 Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award and is the president-elect of the American Group Psychotherapy Association
  • In 2018, Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy was recognized as a specialty within psychology, along other specialties such as clinical child and clinical neuropsychology. C-GRP members—Gleave & Burlingame—played a key role in this application. Check out the announcement here.
  • Two of our recent meta-analyses were awarded the most valuable paper of the year award. In 2016, our comparison of randomized clinical trials between individual and group treatment was awarded the MVP by Psychotherapy; Theory of Research and Practice. Our meta-analysis testing the predictive relationship between cohesion and outcomes in group treatment received the “2018 most valuable contribution to group psychotherapy” award from the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy

Selected faculty involved in current CFT research (left to right): Dr. Doug Benson, Dr. Davey Erikson, Dr. Kara Cattani, Dr. Mark Beecher, Dr. Paul Gilbert, Dr. Gary Burlingame, and Dr. Derek Griner.

Compassion-focused Therapy (CFT)

One of the major projects C-GRP faculty are currently involved in is a randomized clinical trial of compassion-focused therapy (CFT). CFT was originally developed as an adjunct treatment by Dr. Paul Gilbert at the University of Derby in part to treat clients who were resistant to traditional psychotherapy. In 2017-2018 C-GRP faculty Dr. Cattani, Burlingame, Griner, Erekson, Hannan and graduate student Jennifer Jensen conducted a feasibility trial testing the effectiveness of new 12-module group CFT protocol at CAPS. They initially worked alongside an international team of CFT researchers developing a manual for widespread use by clinicians. The trial produced promising results and was published in 2020 in Psychotherapy of Research. In 2020 we began a randomized clinical trial comparing CFT groups with treatment-as-usual—TAU focusing on the following clinical concerns—general anxiety and depression, specific anxiety and eating disorder. We’re conducting a similar CFT-TAU comparison using a quasi-experiemental design at the Utah State Hospital.

We invite interested students to review faculty bios, research interests, and publication record and contact us if they are interested in either participating in our research or being trained in one of our programs.

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