Recovery Pictionary

Client needs: Mental health

Appropriate ages: Adolescents, adults

Treatment goals:

1. Assess and address group members’ awareness of construct: “Recovery"
2. Facilitate group members’ ability to identify:

a.       Personal definitions of recovery

b.      Barriers to recovery, both external and internal

c.       Supports for maintaining recovery, both external and internal

Group session activities:

1. Warm up: Group members take turns playing “Pictionary” with prompt: “A dream or goal you have for your future”

2. Brief group discussion of recovery:

Verbal prompts: What does recovery mean? What does it bring to mind? How does the way we think about recovery impact our recovery?

Non-verbal prompts: Visual representations of recovery, and their “pros” and “cons”

3. Pictionary game: Group members take turns drawing pictures to illustrate the prompts:

            “What are barriers to your recovery?” “What are supports to your recovery?”

4. Group members create a picture of what their recovery looks like, including incorporating their personal dreams or life goals they drew/communicated during the warm-up

5. Group members are prompted to share verbally the content of their recovery pictures with the group