Order Out of Chaos: A Structural Analysis of Group Therapy

The structure of social interaction within four therapy groups was analyzed in terms of the conditional responding of the participants. Structure was measured in terms of the randomness and the patterning of the group members' interactions. It was proposed that groups' interactions would show increasing structure and decreasing randomness across sessions, reflecting a transition from "forming" and "storming" to "norming" and "performing." Within and across groups, no consistent pattern of therapy group development was found. Each group remained fairly unstructured across its group sessions. Group leader and group member dominance within the groups suggested that (a) the frequency with which group members spoke was inversely related to their actual or achieved dominance in the group and (b) the achieved dominance of the group leaders and the group members was fairly equal across groups and across sessions.