Goals That Move the Group: Setting Direction Across Group Therapy Models

Ask a room of strangers what they want, and wait. That is roughly where a process group begins, and it can feel like the opposite of good clinical practice — no agenda handed out, no goals on the whiteboard. This lesson is about what the skilled facilitator is actually doing in that silence.

Prof. Gabriel Dy-Liacco and Dr. Harvey Payne work through a question every group leader eventually faces: how do you set goals when the model tells you not to hand them over ready-made? Their answer reframes goal-setting entirely. In a process group, the facilitator invites each member to name a hope, uses linking skills to turn separate voices into a working group, listens for the themes that surface, and hands those themes back for the group to own. In a psychoeducational or activity group, the same care for goals shows up more directly — helping members test whether a hope is realistic and tying it to the group’s shared purpose. One principle runs through both: the design and goals of the group, and of each member, shape how the facilitator behaves.

You will watch a real conversation between two clinicians, not a slide deck, and draw out a way of thinking you can carry into any group you lead. The lesson carries two enrichment readings — one psychological, grounded in Divine Mercy University faculty scholarship on the person, goals, and flourishing; one spiritual, drawing on Augustine, Aquinas, Ignatius, and Balthasar on desire, direction, and vocation. It closes with a ten-question post-test and earns 1.0 NBCC clock hour for licensed counselors in the Group Counseling content area.

By the end, you will be able to describe how goals are identified in process and psychoeducational groups, and analyze how a group’s design should shape your own facilitation — including when to redirect and where the limits on content lie.