The Effect of Group Therapy and Correspondence with Family on Students' Adjustment to Boarding School

The purpose of the present research is to examine one of the major issues of adjustment of adolescents in boarding schools for students of low socioeconomic status. The research examined two intervention procedures for reducing separation anxiety and its effect on adjustment and dropout rate. The two procedures consisted of group therapy and structured letter correspondence between the students and their families. The subjects were 110 12-year-old students from two boarding schools divided into four groups. In one school, one group received group therapy with structured correspondence; the other was exposed to group therapy only. In the other school, students of one group main tained structured correspondence with family members; the other served as a control group. The findings indicate that the combined intervention and group therapy increased adjustment in several areas and reduced dropouts. Correspon dence with family members had a similar effect on a smaller scale on adjustment, but not on dropouts.