The Group Therapy Questionnaire: An Instrument for Study of Leadership in Small Groups

Abstract

The article presents the Group Therapy Questionnaire (GTQ), a research instrument for the study of leadership in group therapy and related small group settings. The GTQ describes 20 realistic situations which may occur in the course of group therapy and asks each S to indicate how he might respond if he were the group leader confronted with such a situation. The format of this instrument constitutes an attempt to deal with the classical incompatibility between clinical meaningfulness and scientific measurability. The particular leadership variables explored by the GTQ were selected primarily because they seemed to involve fundamental decisions concerning leadership in small groups. The article describes four general situations in which the GTQ has potential usefulness: as a criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of training courses in group therapy, as a criterion measure for comparing different types of leaders, as an independent variable in outcome studies, and as a teaching device.