Group Therapy Trainees’ Social Learning and Interpersonal Awareness: The Role of Cohesion in Training Groups

Despite the common use of experiential training groups for group therapy training, the essential features of training groups have not been fully realized yet. Few studies have tested the impact of cohesion on trainees’ session-to-session development over the course of a training group. As such, this study empirically tested the association between trainees’ perceptions of group cohesion and their interpersonal awareness and social learning session-to-session. Results indicated that within- and between-trainee cohesion was significantly related to trainees’ social learning and interpersonal awareness. Additionally, time significantly moderated the between-trainee cohesion–social learning relationship, such that this relationship increased over time.