The Use of Support Groups to Raise Self-Esteem for Women Clients

A counseling intervention that used a structured support group for women clients was examined as a pilot study. Participants were 33 graduate and undergraduate students who responded to an advertisement for a group about “women and change” or who were referred by campus mental health professionals. As predicted, women who participated in the six two-hour sessions, which incorporated skills-learning, counseling, and peer support, increased their self-esteem significantly more than did the women in a wait-list control group. The approach provides data on a possible alternative to traditional, sometimes problematic, counseling for women.