An investigation into process guided person-centred-experiential group therapy for people Asperger’s Syndrome

The workshop presents the findings from the initial phase of a mixed methods investigation into the process of change and how this occurred during group therapy for people with Asperger’s Syndrome. The purpose of the study is to improve understanding of the specific aspects of therapy that promote change for a therapeutically underserved population.
The specific research questions addressed in this phase of the study:
1. Do adolescents and adults with Asperger's syndrome change over the course of 7-10 sessions of process-guided IPR-assisted group therapy?
2. What are the markers for introducing IPR-based intrapersonal and interpersonal reflection work?
The investigation adopts a discovery-oriented approach to change episodes within a process guided person-centred experiential group therapy intervention. The initial phase of the investigation involves the identification of ‘critical incidents’ or ‘turning points’ within a therapy session. The qualitative findings from this phase of the investigation are to provide thick descriptions of a range of incidence that arise from intrapersonal processing difficulties, interpersonal ruptures and emotional processing differences. It is proposed that the interpersonal encounters predispose adolescents (and consequently adults) to painful experiences leading to mental wellbeing problems.The findings from this phase are used within the model of group therapy as a guidance procedure to selecting significant events. The study employs task analysis as the method for studying the process of change as it unfolds in-session. Through close analysis of discourse, markers and tasks are identified that are associated with specific types of affective-cognitive problems. It is expected that an outcome of this phase of the investigation will be to inform psychotherapy research as to the steps involved in resolving specific types of affective-cognitive problems for this underserved population.