The effect of collaborative writing on cohesion in poetry therapy groups

The use of poetry as a therapeutic technique has evolved into a creative arts therapy known as poetry therapy. Poetry therapy has been used as a therapeutic technique to enhance cohesion. Ross (1974) and Mazza (1981) both used the Group Environment Scale (Moos and Hanson, 1974) as a pretest and posttest measure of group cohesion and discovered that poetry therapy scores on the posttests were significantly greater in poetry therapy groups than those in non-poetry groups. Mazza indicated that the use of collaborative writing in the poetry therapy groups was identified by participants as an aid to feelings of cohesion. The purpose of this study was to build on previous research conducted on poetry therapy and cohesion by isolating the variable of collaborative writing and comparing control groups without collaborative writing and experimental groups with collaborative writing on the Group Environment Scale. The subjects in this study were 33 graduate students in an intact Group Counseling class at an urban university were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The treatment for the control group consisted of six sessions of poetry therapy without collaborative writing. The experimental groups received six sessions of poetry therapy with collaborative writing. A t-test was used to compare control and experimental posttest scores on the Group Environment Scale. The comparison revealed that there was a significant difference (p $<$.05) between posttest scores in poetry therapy groups with collaborative writing. Therefore the hypothesis that there would be a significant difference between control and experimental groups was accepted. This study supports previous research on the effect of poetry therapy and collaborative writing as ways of increasing cohesion in therapy groups.