Mirror Effects: The Curative Factors of Group Counseling in Tertiary Education

Yalom (1995) identified 11 therapeutic factors as specific elements that mediate positive change in group treatment and make group psychotherapy work. Mirroring techniques create a two-way knowledge transfer medium and facilitate the learning and teaching process. The present study aimed to investigate the role of student-centered experiential learning in group counseling education. Each therapeutic factor explored in this study was reviewed independently with the use of mirroring techniques. In the present study, a purposive sample of 30 in-service part-time undergraduate social work students, who had been enrolled in a course on group counseling at an earlier time, participated in semi-structured individual interviews. The interview data were collected, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. The field observation notes were triangulated with the interview data to supplement the results of the thematic analysis. Categories were created in accordance with Yalom and Leszcz’s model of therapeutic factors. The results showed that four curative factors contribute to two-way knowledge transfer: universality, catharsis, the impartation and sharing of information, and modeling. These factors facilitate the transfer of knowledge about counseling skills either by means of participation in or observation of live demonstrations. The results also showed that the use of mirroring in the learning and teaching of counseling helped students express their own emotions, learn and experience psychotherapy through enactment, and improve interpersonal relationships in their daily lives. The implications of the present findings pertain to the use of mirroring techniques to promote positive well-being, deepen students’ understanding of how knowledge can be applied in their own lives, and facilitate the application of skills in ways that support and enhance their current situations.