Involuntary clients are different

Groupwork has always been interested in empowering individuals to help themselves and others. Within successful therapeutic groups, group process is central to and provides a unique way of helping. Most of the research has been with voluntary populations, and the groups have already been in existence or are naturally formed groups.Focusing on involuntary clients, my research studied the use of individual relational theories, in conjunction with group engagement theories. Understanding the relational aspects of the group interactive process has provided another way to conceptualize the engagement process with involuntary clients. This paper combines individual and group theories in order to construct a conceptual model for theory building and effective practice with involuntary clients.It was found that with an involuntary population the group leaders’ acceptance of the anger that group members initially bring to this interaction is especially important. This is the beginning of the engagement process with involuntary clients