GROUP COUNSELING PROJECT Geisler 1

Group Counseling Project: Paper

Noelle Geisler

School of Education

EDUC-G532

Dr. Franklin

15 June 2023
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Group Counseling Project: Paper

Section I: Title, Goals, Objectives, and Rationale

The group that I would like to create is titled, “Body Image Acceptance,” where the

group will be focusing on negative body image. This would be a 5 week curriculum that

addressed various topics and activities surrounding body image. Each session would be one hour

long and would be held for high school students of any grade. After much thought, I decided to

restrict this group to only female students. If I were to start this group, I would most likely hold

two different sessions, one for female students and the other for male students. The reasoning

for this decision stems from the different trajectories that these sessions would go towards for

different genders. Body image issues for men typically relate to being bigger and more

muscular, whereas females often focus on being slimmer (Bresolin, 1993). I think that holding

two separate groups would be more beneficial for students in order to narrow the focus to their

specific difficulties surrounding body image. I also considered separate groups due to the

possibility of topics of sexualization being brought up during sessions. Discussing one’s body is

an intimate conversation and may involve sexualization and objectification. The involvement of

both genders may inhibit their ability to speak freely, which would hinder the group members'

process and goal attainment. While I would prefer to hold two separate groups for each gender

about body image, the focus of my project will remain on a female group.

I would like to start this group in order to address the poor body image that students

might have and how it impacts their mood and self-esteem. The overarching goal for my

counseling group is to transform negative self-talk about students’ bodies into positive self-talk.

While the overall topic of the group focuses on body image, I would also touch on how it

impacts students’ moods, self-esteem, and confidence. While students may have certain feelings
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about their bodies, they may not fully understand how that is impacting other aspects of their

lives. Negative self image and low confidence can impact their emotional and social well-being,

along with negatively impacting their success and academic achievement. By breaking down the

impact of negative body image and focusing on specific topics each week, students’ can grow in

different areas and meet various goals. This would result in a multitude of outcomes. In relation

to focusing on feelings and moods, students’ would increase their awareness about their

emotions and leave sessions more prepared on how to respond to negative feelings. When

discussing self-esteem and confidence, I would like for students’ to leave sessions feeling more

empowered. They would have a greater appreciation for themselves and have ways to continue

their personal growth outside of the sessions. Another outcome that students’ would have is the

ability to transform negative self-talk into positive self-talk. I believe that this would be the

biggest achievement for the group since negative body image is often associated with negative

self-talk.

I am particularly motivated about starting this group curriculum because body issues have

a large impact on adolescents. Individuals become more aware of their changing bodies and how

they compare to others during adolescent years (Berger, 2020). This can heighten

self-consciousness and lead to lower self-esteem. While I am not focusing my group on those

with body dysmorphia, general body image issues are related to this disorder at a less severe

level. The average age of onset for body dysmorphic disorder is 16-17 years old (American

Psychiatric Association, 2013). According to Paxton et al. (2006), “body dissatisfaction has

been reported by 24%–46% of adolescent girls,” (p. 888). Both of these statistics show that this

topic is particularly prevalent in this age group. Since the teenage years are the main age group

impacted by these issues, I am deciding to focus this group for high school students.
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Another reason I am particularly drawn towards this topic and creating a curriculum that

focuses upon it is due to the mental health concerns that often stem from body image issues.

Negative body image and body dysmorphia is often associated with eating disorders, depression,

anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Along

with these mental health concerns, negative body image can have a severe impact on one’s

confidence and self-esteem. This negative impact on confidence can lead to impairments in

social relationships and success. Being able to discuss the root issue of one’s poor self-esteem,

one’s body, may enable them to be more successful in their academics and other aspirations.

This group would be one that has a more positive focus. After initial discussions on how

body image may impact students’ lives and opening up the discussion, I would want to focus the

activities on building confidence and a positive image of oneself. Focusing on values other than

appearance can benefit the students' views about their worth. They will leave the group with a

better ability to regulate their feelings about their body along with tools that they can use to build

positive growth. These are tools that they can take with them beyond the sessions and high

school in general. The time period of adolescence and emerging adulthood is a great time to

build these skills in order to continue learning about themselves and progressing into their

futures.

Section 2: Session Description

In terms of the developmental level of the group and its curriculum, I would ensure that it

is appropriate for this age group. Since I am choosing to work with high school students, I

believe that the content of the topics we will discuss will not need to be altered for

appropriateness. Adolescents are exposed to a large vocabulary and images that relate to bodies

and body image. I believe that restricting certain topics would diminish the effectiveness for this
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group, and the members within the group should be able to speak openly about themselves in

order to gain the full benefits of the group. However, I will moderate the group in terms of using

vulgar language. This is because it is not necessary to communicate a point to the group. If I

was holding this group at a younger age range, I would maybe try to avoid conversations about

sexualization. However, I believe the age group that I have chosen is cognitively developed

enough in order to cover all the possible discussion points. Anything that would be useful to

share for the group would be welcome within my sessions.

The first session that I would hold would focus on introductions, for the members and the

group session topics themselves. At the first session of the counseling curriculum, I would like

to administer a pre-test. The purpose of the pre-test would be to get a baseline of the group

members' feelings about their bodies, the perception that they have of societal standards for body

image, and the feelings that they have about themselves because of their body image. The

pre-test assessment that I would use is the Adolescent Body Image Satisfaction Scale (ABISS).

The questions included in this assessment can be found in Figure 1. This is a short assessment

that can give me as the counselor a better idea about the initial feelings that the group members

are bringing to the sessions. This will also be a beneficial measurement tool towards the end of

the curriculum to view the members progress. During the first session, I would plan to introduce

the main topics of the curriculum, such as the definition of body image. I would also want to

include a brief icebreaker that can allow for group cohesion to begin forming. This curriculum

will touch on heavier topics, so group cohesion is a priority.

During the second session, I would want to focus on how body image issues impact our

emotions and moods. I would include simple discussion points such as, what emotions and

moods are, how emotions and moods can impact our behaviors and social lives, and the current
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emotional states of the group members. I would like to take this conversation and teach the

members about how body image is associated with decreased moods and negative emotions.

The dissatisfaction of one's body in relation to cultural and societal standards can result in higher

occurrences of depression (Bresolin, 1993). It is important to understand one’s emotions and

show the importance of emotional well-being. I would use this session’s content to promote

emotional awareness of my group’s members. A worksheet that I would use for this particular

session would be a mood chart presented by Karimova (2023) (Figure 2). With this mood chart,

the members could reflect on their daily emotions, how they change throughout the week, what

caused them, and reactions to such moods. This is a tangible tool that members can use to reflect

on, which builds awareness of their own emotions along with how to protect them. This is

something that I would like to pass out for the remainder of the curriculum, and may be a useful

tool to reflect on to begin the sessions. It may be interesting to see how the curriculum impacts

the moods and emotions of the members each week along with the overall impact that the

duration of the curriculum has on members.

During the next session, I would focus the group discussion around self-esteem and

confidence. Since body image issues concern one’s appearance, I think it is tightly connected

with the students' own views about their worth. By focusing an entire session on building

confidence and self-esteem, students can discover other parts about themselves that are valuable,

beyond their physical appearance. An activity that I would like to conduct during this session

would be a negative self belief challenge created by Soza (2023). As shown in Figure 3, students

would write down aspects of themselves that they dislike and the reason behind them. The group

would then state these aspects to the group, and group members could comment upon them.

Oftentimes, the beliefs that we hold about ourselves are distorted. By receiving positive
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feedback that may contradict these negative beliefs, students can get a clearer picture of

themselves and begin to adapt these beliefs to be more positive. A piece of psycho-education

that I would teach upon is self-compassion. Self-compassion involves treating oneself kindly,

understanding shared humanity, and mindfulness about negative thoughts about oneself (Neff &

Vonk, 2008). I would want to teach about self-compassion because it can be a mitigative factor

against poor self-esteem and dissatisfaction about one’s body (Stapleton et al., 2017).

Self-compassion itself can increase one’s respect for themselves, provide different ways of

valuing themselves, and decrease body image concerns (Stapleton et al., 2017). Stapleton et al.

(2017) stated, “While self-esteem is contingent on success in valued domains such as appearance

or social approval, self-compassion involves treating oneself kindly in times of adversity” (p.

240). Because of these reasons, I think that teaching students about increasing their

self-compassion along with addressing self-esteem concerns could be highly beneficial. I think

that the activity paired with education about self-compassion would allow for students to value

themselves beyond appearance. After learning about self-compassion, a discussion would be

held about how this activity and education has impacted them in this session. This would also

allow me to understand what students have learned in this session.

The next session that I would hold would touch on transforming negative self-talk into

positive self-talk. I think that this is something that would benefit my students beyond the

counseling session, and they can take these skills with them for the future. With this session, I

would teach students about what self-talk is, the difference between positive and negative

self-talk, and why it is important to use positive self-talk when addressing ourselves. An activity

that I would like to use for this session would be one that focuses on transforming negative

self-talk (Figure 4) (Cullins, n.d.). This would be a “hands-on” activity that would allow for
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students to reflect on how they talk about themselves with the goal of changing that self-talk. I

would hand out a piece of paper and instruct students to divide it into three columns. In the

middle column, students would write negative things they tell themselves, such as “I am not

smart.” In the left column, students would describe the situation or scenario that occurs when

they tell themselves these comments. In the right column, the students would change their

perspectives and comments. This would include a positive comment that is more realistic, such

as “I am smart and can do better in school if I study more.” This can help students retrain the

way they think in a more adaptive manner. I would use this activity to show students that they

do not have to use negative self-talk, but rather more uplighting and positive comments. I would

end this session with a discussion about how students can implement this technique in their lives.

I believe this would be an encouraging activity that can promote more positive emotions within

the students.

Section 3: Evaluation and Follow-Up

The final session would be used as a closing session. This would be an overall debrief of

all the sessions. I would like for this final session to be a bit more discussion based where the

students can reflect on what they have learned, how they have felt during the duration of the

curriculum, what techniques they will take with them beyond the curriculum, and what steps they

will take moving forward. During this session, I would administer the ABISS assessment again.

This would allow for me to see if the students' beliefs and perceptions about their body and

appearance have evolved after the curriculum. I would also like to end the session with some

breathwork and meditation exercises. This would be quite short, and it would not be

accompanied by an entire psycho-education lesson. However, I believe that it would be a

calming and positive way to end the session. This would also be a final technique that they can
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use in the future that can help calm themselves. The final piece of this curriculum would be a

feedback form. I would like to create a brief survey for the students to fill out that would allow

me to gain feedback. This survey would include questions such as what they have learned, what

they thought was the best activity, what they did not like about the sessions, what they would

change, and if they would recommend this curriculum to others. Having physical evidence of

what the students received from this curriculum would be very helpful for me in order to change

certain aspects to be more effective and efficient.

Overall, I would hope that the students benefited from this curriculum. By breaking

down aspects of body image issues, I would want the students to leave with skills that can help

them overcome these issues. The students have learned about how their moods and emotions

impact their lives, received a mood chart that helps them catalog their daily emotions, learned

about self-compassion, completed an activity to change the way they view negative aspects about

themselves with the help of other members and myself, learned about the impact of self-talk with

ways to use more positive self-talk in their lives, and have learned meditation techniques that can

be used in adverse situations. The goal of the curriculum is to address body image issues, but I

want the students to have a multitude of strategies and educational points to better improve their

self-image and sense of worth. I hope that this curriculum would have the students leave feeling

better about themselves and better equipped to handle future events and thoughts.
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References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

(5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596

Text citation: (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)

Berger, K. S. (2020). The developing person through the life span (11th ed.). Worth Publishers

Bresolin, L. (1993). Body image and health counseling for women. Archives of Family Medicine,

2(10), 1084–1087. https://doi.org/10.1001/archfami.2.10.1084

Cullins, A. (n.d.). 9 self-confidence building activities for students. Big Life Journal.

https://biglifejournal.com/blogs/blog/self-confidence-building-activities

Karimova, H. (2023, April 7). 7 best mood trackers to chart and Journal your mood (+ PDF).

PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/mood-charts-track-your-mood/

Leone, J. E., Mullin, E. M., Maurer-Starks, S. S., & Rovito, M. J. (2014). The adolescent body

image satisfaction scale for males. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 28(9),

2657–2668. https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000000439

Neff, K. D., & Vonk, R. (2008). Self-compassion versus global self-esteem: Two different ways

of relating to oneself. Journal of Personality, 77(1), 23–50.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00537.x

Paxton, S. J., Eisenberg, M. E., & Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2006). Prospective predictors of body

dissatisfaction in adolescent girls and boys: A five-year longitudinal study.

Developmental Psychology, 42(5), 888–899. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.888

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Soza, S. (2023, May 26). 5 powerful teen self-esteem activities {+ printable workbook}. They

Are The Future. https://www.theyarethefuture.co.uk/teen-self-esteem-activities/

Stapleton, P., Crighton, G. J., Carter, B., & Pidgeon, A. (2017). Self-esteem and body image in

females: The mediating role of self-compassion and appearance contingent self-worth.

The Humanistic Psychologist, 45(3), 238–257. https://doi.org/10.1037/hum0000059

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Materials

Figure 1

Adolescent Body Image Satisfaction Scale (ABISS)

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Figure 2
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Figure 3
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Figure 4