Subjects were 12 males from a live-in treatment center for first-time felony offenders which provided residential treatment and supervision for young men as an alternative to the penitentiary. Most of the participants had been convicted of a property offense or of the possession of an illicit drug, average age was 18.2 years, and the average educational level was 10.5 grades. Most of the subjects had a drug abuse problem upon admission to the facility. Required group meetings were held twice weekly, and group sizes varied from 7 to 14 individuals. The average range of stay for the subjects was about 7 months. A Q-sort method was used to determine the items or events perceived by subjects as most helpful in the meetings. Seven judgmental categories (Block) were used to provide a practical method of ranking the items into a most-to-least distrubution. Each subject was given a randomized card pile which included Yalom's 60 curative items and asked to place the cards into the 7 categories in rank order. The resulting overall rank order, from the most to least important, was catharsis, cohesiveness, interpersonal learning (input), interpersonal learning (output), self-understanding, existential factor, altruism, instillation of hope, guidance, family reenactment, universality, and identification. Since the findings are similar to those of previous studies of nonoffender groups, it is suggested that different types of settings and groups have little or no effect on the perception of what is helpful in group sessions. A review of related studies, data tables, and a 12-item reference list are included.