7: Choice Awareness Check

 

The purpose of Choice Awareness Check Group is to allow  treatment participants to consolidate their belief in their power of self-determination as well as to allow group participants to become inoculated to any arguments designed to undermine their sense of self-efficacy. 

Finally, the purpose of the group is to create a moment of accountability with a corresponding motivation-enhancing dissonance.  The intended effect is to place a group participant in a situation in which he or she ardently defends his or her freedom and verbalizes the need for choice awareness, as a dissonance-inducing contrast for any unsystematic or inconsistent practice of choice awareness.   In other words, as a group participant finds himself in a position to “preach” choice awareness, he feels compelled to at least attempt a systematic practice of the skill in question.  

Additionally, Choice Awareness Check Group allows for vicarious learning and interpersonal feedback.  Group participants are exposed to their fellow group members’ “theses” on choice awareness and ideas about choice awareness practice – such excessive but idiosyncratic review of the material allows group members to further internalize the underlying clinical message by learning from their peers.

The duration of the group corresponds to the number of the group participants with each participant taking a single session to present his understanding of the need for choice awareness and his choice awareness practice routine.  Following the introductory session, a list of clients’ presentations is created and the clients are given a “choice awareness check” form to guide their preparation and presentation on their respective dates.  Each session begins with a “presentation” and is followed by a Q & A session that is moderated by the group facilitator.