1 - (SYM 90) the Role of Collectivistic Behaviors in Distress Reduction in Group Therapy for Serious Mental Illness and Transdiagnostic Concerns

Culturally informed therapy (CIT) is a 15-week therapy that was created for people with serious mental illness (SMI) and their families and was subsequently adapted for transdiagnostic and SMI groups. Past research has found that CIT increased collectivistic tendencies and that these changes were associated with better mental health post-treatment. However, these past findings were done within the context of family intervention, necessitating further investigation of how these therapeutic methods may apply in a group therapy context. In addition, weekly implementation of these practices has yet to be examined, which may aid in understanding CIT skill development. It is also unclear if older people and people with SMI learn these skills as effectively due to higher rates of cognitive decline within these populations. Thus, utilizing a growth curve model, we hypothesized that psychological distress would decline with more sessions attended, in part due to increasing participants’ collectivistic behaviors. Further, we expected this effect to be moderated by age and diagnosis. Our study consisted of a sample of 61 individuals (469 observations) with transdiagnostic difficulties (n = 40) as well as serious mental illness (n = 21). We found that more sessions attended coincided with decreased distress. Younger individuals benefitted from engaging in more collectivistic behaviors, but average-aged (i.e., early 50’s) and older adults (i.e., late 60’s) did not. This effect was the same for both SMI and transdiagnostic groups. Results suggest that engaging in collectivistic behaviors is one mechanism for improvement in CIT for both transdiagnostic and SMI groups. Ultimately, younger clients may benefit more from therapy that encourages actionable behaviors in line with collectivistic values.