Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the therapeutic factors of 2 group-counseiings focused on character education. Four hundred and forty one college students who took group counseling as a liberal arts course(Group A) and 370 military academy cadets who participated in 1-day intensive group counseling program(GroupB) were rated on a Critical Incident Questionnaire(Bloch et al. 1979) and The Group Counseling Helpful Impacts Scale(Kivlighan et. al. 1996). The factor analysis was performed by maximum likelihood. Results revealed 3 therapeutic factors from group A, and 6 therapeutic factors from group B. These factors of Group A were labeled 1) Awareness and attempt to change through Interpersonal activity, 2) Group cohesiveness and positive, acceptive climate, 3) Self understanding and insight. The factors of Group B were 1) Learning from interpersonal activity, 2) Understanding of Self-problem 3)The chance of self expression 4)Catharsis and attempt to change, 5) Emotional awareness and insight, 6)Cohesiveness and positive, acceptive climate. Group exercises that seemed to be closely related to the therapeutic factors were explored. The implication of long-term and short-term group counseling for character education was also discussed.