© Simon Buckingham Shum
Compendium: A computerised programme for the tracking and measurement of group process
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Marion Brown, Andy Downie, Nicole Howard Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Aylesbury
Simon Buckingham Shum Knowledge Media Institute Open University, Milton Keynes
23rd Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research Ravenscar, UK, March 2010 www.psychotherapyresearch.org
© Simon Buckingham Shum
How do we evidence that group analytic process is an effective medium of change?
Group analysts believe that group process is a vital factor in helping individual members change pathological patterns of relating to themselves and others?
This is complex to record and measure: notes alone rarely do it justice
Cognitive science and information design give us ways to visualize complex phenomena
A good visualization relieves memory load, and draws analysts’ attention to significant aspects
Any map filters out noise in order to support specific kinds of interpretation
“Compendium” is a way to map group process, with the addition of a database, in order to build a searchable evidence base
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© Simon Buckingham Shum
How do we record and understand what’s happening in a group?
How do we demonstrate that this process enables change in individual members?
By tracking interactions in the group
Identifying significant themes, key moments and patterns…
between members
between members and the group as a whole
within individual members
Understanding how these change over time
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© Simon Buckingham Shum
Murray Cox: Group Interaction Chronogram
i Beginning
ii Middle
iii End
Patient:
© Simon Buckingham Shum
i Beginning
ii Middle
iii End
i Beginning
ii Middle
iii End
i Beginning
ii Middle
iii End
i Beginning
ii Middle
iii End
i Beginning
ii Middle
iii End
i Beginning
ii Middle
iii End
+ +
-
?
Therapist
Murray Cox: Group Interaction Chronogram
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Compendium software (Open University) http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute
“Semantic hypermedia” software
grounded in 25 years’ computing research in the design of flexible tools for managing information and ideas
Analogy: “a spreadsheet for ideas”
tools to build a visual language, and arrange, connect, index and search information and ideas
A bit like mindmapping, but with a full database underpinning it to enable a long-term evidence base
Free and open source, works on all platforms, funded by UK Research Councils (AHRC; ESRC; EPSRC; e-Science Programme; JISC) 6
© Simon Buckingham Shum
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Context: A brief focused analytic group
A closed 24 session homogeneous analytic group comprising 8 individuals, 4 male, 4 female and one group conductor
Group members were within the moderate to severe level of mental health difficulty
All had complex personal and mental health histories leading to significant difficulty in intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships in their adult lives
The theme that emerged most clearly at assessment was repressed and/or suppressed anger correlating with severe anxiety/panic and depressive symptomatology
This formed the group focus 8
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Theme 1: Anger
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Analyst’s record of her interpretation to the group
on the emerging
theme
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Theme 2: Reaching out to one of the group
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The tags on a patient’s icon
show the behaviours
perceived by the analyst
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Theme 3: Medication
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Analyst’s notes on the theme that emerged
towards the group’s
conclusion
© Simon Buckingham Shum
The individual in the group
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Map of the group from a
specific individual’s perspective
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Map of all dynamics
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Private notes on a
patient (dashed
link)
Particularly strong
relationship
No links from other
patients…
Highly active patient
Red ring reminds
analyst of one patient’s effect on the group
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Which behaviours do two patients share? Tags shared in common are orange, tags from one patient in green
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© Simon Buckingham Shum
Analysing the evidence base across sessions
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© Simon Buckingham Shum
Analysing a patient across Sessions 1 and 11
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Focusing on the “tag profile” for a patient in different sessions
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Next steps (1): additional ways of evidencing changes
Group level: Compare maps from two or more sessions by placing
them next to each other
Compare the group tag profiles from sessions: by selecting all nodes in a map, all relevant tags ‘light up’
Individual level: Compare the tag profile for a patient over time, from pre-
group assessment, through early, midway and closing sessions, to review.
Compare relationships between specific patients across sessions
© Simon Buckingham Shum
Next steps (2): additional ways of evidencing changes
Technological potential: Video annotation: indexing video data with icons and
connections
Summary reports/graphs generated from the incidence of tags, links, etc
Theoretical potential: We would hope to see a shift from negative to more
positive tags over time
Can we find patterns in tags or links congruent with theoretical predictions? (e.g. matching tags between patients = “mirroring”)