Dialectical Behavior Group Therapy for Adolescents and Parents: Analysis of Answer Entropy

Abstract

Introduction: The work's purpose is to study the group behavior of the members of six therapeutic groups, two closed and four slow-open, involved in a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) class. We studied three groups of teenagers and three of their parents or legal guardians. We confronted the groups' responses to an "absurd questionnaire" submitted during the training, and we concentrated on the entropy of the response. Methods: The research method consists of a questionnaire administered to training attendees. Participants chose one picture in each one of 50 couples ("absurd questionnaire"). In this work, we could propose a questionnaire to each trainee before the first meeting of the groups. We studied the longitudinal evolution of entropy, and we also compared the six groups according to their first picture choices and their evolution, the changes in the choices, the number of changes (flux), and the divergence or convergence toward the initial answer (focus). We have also analyzed the frequency of entropy variation via the Fourier transform. Results: We find the maximum statistical difference between parents' and adolescents' closed groups. The entropy trend is steeper in the adolescent closed group. The entropy evolution depends more on the age group (parents or adolescents) in closed and slow-open groups than on the setting. We found an increase in entropy from the beginning to the end of the training in all the groups. Conclusions: The clear outcome of this study is the