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23rd Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research
Ravenscar, UK, March 2010
www.psychotherapyresearch.org

Compendium: A computerised
programme for the tracking and
measurement of group process

Marion Brown, Andy Downie, Nicole Howard
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health
NHS Foundation Trust, Aylesbury

Simon Buckingham Shum
Knowledge Media Institute
Open University, Milton Keynes
1
© Simon Buckingham Shum

How do we evidence that group analytic process
is an effective medium of change?

  Group analysts believe that group process is a vital factor in
helping individual members change pathological patterns of
relating to themselves and others?

  This is complex to record and measure: notes alone rarely do it
justice

  Cognitive science and information design give us ways to
visualize complex phenomena

  A good visualization relieves memory load, and draws analysts’
attention to significant aspects

  Any map filters out noise in order to support specific kinds of
interpretation

  “Compendium” is a way to map group process, with the addition
of a database, in order to build a searchable evidence base
2

How do we record and understand what’s
happening in a group?

  How do we demonstrate that this process enables
change in individual members?
  By tracking interactions in the group
  Identifying significant themes, key moments and
patterns…
  between members

  between members and the group as a whole

  within individual members

  Understanding how these change over time

3

Murray Cox: Group Interaction Chronogram

Patient:

iii End i Beginning

ii Middle


Murray Cox: Group Interaction Chronogram
iii End i Beginning

ii Middle

iii End i Beginning
iii End i Beginning

ii Middle
ii Middle

?
+
+
iii End i Beginning - iii End i Beginning

ii Middle
ii Middle

iii End i Beginning

ii Middle

Therapist

Compendium software (Open University)
http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute

  “Semantic hypermedia” software

  grounded in 25 years’ computing research in the design
of flexible tools for managing information and ideas

  Analogy: “a spreadsheet for ideas”

  tools to build a visual language, and arrange, connect,
index and search information and ideas

  A bit like mindmapping, but with a full database
underpinning it to enable a long-term evidence base

  Free and open source, works on all platforms, funded
by UK Research Councils (AHRC; ESRC; EPSRC; e-Science Programme; JISC) 6

Context: A brief focused analytic group

  A closed 24 session homogeneous analytic group
comprising 8 individuals, 4 male, 4 female and one
group conductor
  Group members were within the moderate to severe
level of mental health difficulty
  All had complex personal and mental health histories
leading to significant difficulty in intrapersonal and
interpersonal relationships in their adult lives
  The theme that emerged most clearly at assessment
was repressed and/or suppressed anger correlating
with severe anxiety/panic and depressive
symptomatology
  This formed the group focus
8

Theme 1: Anger

Analyst’s
record of her
interpretation
to the group
on the
emerging
theme

9

Theme 2: Reaching out to one of the group

The tags on a
patient’s icon
show the
behaviours
perceived by
the analyst

10

Theme 3: Medication

Analyst’s
notes on the
theme that
emerged
towards the
group’s
conclusion

11

The individual in the group

Map of the
group from a
specific
individual’s
perspective

12

Map of all dynamics

No links from Highly active
other patient
patients…
Red ring
reminds
analyst of one
patient’s effect
on the group

Private Particularly
notes strong
on a relationship
patient
(dashed
link) 13

Which behaviours do two patients share?
Tags shared in common are orange, tags from one patient in green

14

Analysing the evidence base across sessions

15

Analysing a patient across Sessions 1 and 11

Focusing on the
“tag profile” for a
patient in different
sessions
16

Next steps (1):
additional ways of evidencing changes
Group level:
  Compare maps from two or more sessions by placing
them next to each other
  Compare the group tag profiles from sessions: by
selecting all nodes in a map, all relevant tags ‘light up’
Individual level:
  Compare the tag profile for a patient over time, from pre-
group assessment, through early, midway and closing
sessions, to review.
  Compare relationships between specific patients across
sessions


Next steps (2):
additional ways of evidencing changes
Technological potential:
  Video annotation: indexing video data with icons and
connections
  Summary reports/graphs generated from the incidence
of tags, links, etc

Theoretical potential:
  We would hope to see a shift from negative to more
positive tags over time
  Can we find patterns in tags or links congruent with
theoretical predictions? (e.g. matching tags between
patients = “mirroring”)

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