Counseling Group

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer focuses on finding efficient treatment for obesity among female college students. The suggested therapeutic approach is group therapy, for reasons which are detailed in the paper. The selection of the population is made on a voluntary basis, through class announcements and bulletin boards. The writer concentrates on the aspects of group therapy (theoretical debates and importance), selection of the participants and group method, starting assumption and expected results. Moreover, the methodological theoretical framework of constituting the groups and the work with the patients is presented and detailed. The writer concludes that as the cases of obese and overweight people are multiplying in the United States, the importance of treatment and therapy has also become a matter of social importance.

From the Paper:

"The fact that the persons involved in this therapeutical project are exclusively women can be supported by several theoretical arguments. First of all, women are more concerned with and more affected by the aesthetic norms than men, which is basically a reflection of a socially manufactured division of roles and of a certain definition of feminity. Second, the cultural factors are corroborated with the family environment, particulalrly a stress placed on the importance of appearance for future success in the discourse of the adults, when socializing the female child for her future social and family life. The combination of all these factors - cultural patterns and constrains, family environment, media and the stereotype of beauty - make women more susceptible to be affected by eating disorders than men. Even if obesity is not an exclusively feminine attribute, but it is almost as common between men, they do not perceive it as an obstacle for their social existence or for their self-esteem, correlating it rather with health issues."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Allon, Natalie - "Latent Social Services in Group Dieting", Social Problems, 23 (1), 1975, pp. 59-69
• Boskind-Lodahl, Marlene - "Cinderella's Stepsisters: A Feminist Perspective on Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia", Signs 2 (2), 1976, pp. 342-356
• Dreese, Mitchell - "Group Guidance and Group Therapy", Review of Educational Research, 27 (2), 1957, pp. 219-228
• Dwyer, Johanna T.; Feldman, Jacob J.; Mayer, Jean - "The Social Psychology of Dieting", Journal of Health and Social Behaviour 11 (4), 1970, pp. 269-287
• Faber, Ronald J. et.al. - "Two Forms of Compulsive Consumption: Comorbidity of Compulsive Buying and Binge Eating", The Journal of Consumer Research 22 (3), 1995, pp. 296-304

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