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The unedited version of an article published in the April 2004
edition of the Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal, published by
BACP.
(John Gloster-Smith, a group facilitator, uses a not un-common
event in the life of a group, when someone unexpectedly decides to
leave, to explore the qualities of awareness and presence that a
Transpersonal facilitator may bring to selecting an appropriate
intervention.)
I am facilitating a pre-lunch session of an all-day workshop,
and we are reviewing some theoretical aspects of the work. The
group is becoming more relaxed and the discussion is flowing.
People are interacting with each other with some ease now. We start
to look at the issue of completion and I am sharing my perspective
on how people may be uncomfortable with endings. A group member
suddenly speaks and says that he will shortly be leaving the group
for an immediate personal reason relating to a call he’d received
in the last break. He speaks abruptly, he looks tentatively round
the room and his voice sounds nervous. On hearing this, I too look
around the room and am struck by the expressions on the faces of
the others. They look tense and seem to be holding back and
wondering. I am also aware of tension in my own body and that the
atmosphere in the room has hardened, to a certain stickiness.
I pause for a moment before responding to the man’s announcement
and make a quick decision about a response. I then ask him if he’d
be OK to hear what others in the group might like to say about his
imminent departure. He agrees and then others start to share how
they feel. For example one says how sorry he is that the man is
leaving as he’d just been getting to know him and had liked meeting
him. There are other sharings, several being deeper, some relating
not just to the leaver but to their own feelings. I ask the
“leaver” how he is doing. In his response he says that he used to
be a bereavement counsellor and that he has difficulty with
endings, has left before the end before and on occasions left
without telling people in the group. In my own mind, I am reminded
of when this too has figured for me. The group is now more relaxed
again but this time different. Feelings have been released and, to
me, people seem closer. Also the man is more able to leave with a
sense of completion both for himself and the others. Afterwards, we
attend to our awareness of the person having just left, the empty
chair, the space now left open, how we feel and what as a group we
need. Only after that can I get on with considering theory
again!
Afterwards, I am reminded of how in other environments I’ve seen
people just leave, without any working through. I am reminded of
how a lot of my work too has been connected in some way with change
and with loss and grieving and I can also own to having had similar
reactions and behaviours to the man who had left this workshop
early, to having left a group prematurely and having had my own
pain about this.
An event like this is a common one in working with groups. What
is of interest to me in this article is to explore how I as the
facilitator work with the immediacy of the event and in particular
how, as evidenced in my pausing and checking the group, concepts
like awareness and presence can be of use in the quality of the
intervention.
Reflecting on the intervention now, as the facilitator, what was
crucial to me was an awareness of group process, of what was
happening in the group, what Yalom calls “the interpersonal
relationship of the participants.” From a humanistic/transpersonal
perspective, I was able to use my experience and my theoretical
understanding, of the data present, in the “here and now.” Also I
am mindful of Yalom’s reminder, that “physical survival of the
group must take precedence over other tasks.” I paused and checked
my awareness. This was a key action for me. What is happening right
now in the group? What, in this instant, is going on with
individual people as I can observe it? How do I feel, in my bodily
sensation? How does the group “seem to feel?” So I attend to
sensation and awareness, at a multiple of levels, my own, other
individuals, the group, relationships in the group and so on. My
experience and my knowledge of theory tells me that, if a pressing
figure of interest, a Gestalt, is not attended to, it will in some
way impair the functioning of the group. One way this can show up
is that the tension in the room, and with individuals, remains.
Individuals are less likely to share, people feel less safe and
particularly the emotional climate is damaged. We all know that
something just did not get dealt with. The Gestalt needs to be
worked through, in this case with reference among others to
retroflection of feeling within the group, deflection of feeling
within the man leaving and perhaps ownership of his
confluence/isolation issues. Emotion is relevant not just for
individuals but for whole groups.
I am also reminded of the importance of facilitator presence. To
me this is the fundamental aspect to my facilitation. This is in
part about awareness, about being as fully aware as I can be and
about attending to the present moment, the “here and now”, rather
than, say, talking “about something”. To me, the present contains
all the gems of life, which we usually miss by living mostly in the
past or the future. The present connects us with our deepest
selves. Also presence is about being connected to myself, being
present to my own sensations and feelings, to my own core of being
and beingness. Here, from a humanistic/transpersonal perspective, I
connect with my centre of being which I have come to know is my
anchor and support and source of calmness in my work. My own
journeying has brought me to know that place more and more. As
Hycner says, “Being fully present is already a hallowing. It
underlines our connectedness with Being” (Hycner’s italics). What I
am meaning here is the quality of beingness, of being “right there”
for another, fully “with” their experiencing, fully “in the
moment”. In the case described above, it was a matter of being
right there and fully attentive to the moment and to the energy of
the group.
Presence is a plugging in to consciousness, and this can be at
several levels. Partly this may refer to the atmosphere in the
room. It is as though the group has a collective “energy”,
something that at a sensing level has a feel to it. This energy can
fluctuate and shift, from a warm glow to a tense, icy condition,
back to being relaxed and calm, to vibrant, and so on. What I
noticed with the event described above is that the atmosphere of
the group was changed by the experience and was in some way closer.
I am, as a member of the group, both involved as a human being in
the process myself moment by moment and I am also periodically
pausing and checking, attending to my own process but also that of
the multiplicity of agendas around me and to their needs.
Sometimes, it seems like I am in the midst of some wonderful flow
of human expression: warm, loving, alive, embracing, cherishing. At
others, it may be awkward, tense, anxious, angry, resentful,
apologetic, embarrassed, repressed or denying. I am both part of
this gorgeous wave of humanity and I am also holding the space,
providing the steer, being an anchor, a point of reference. What is
key though, is that I am a witness to what occurs. I am both a
witness to my own experience and I am a witness to what goes on in
the group. And the space that I hold is a centred one, as much as I
can be there. I am not attached to my experiencing, just the
witness of that experiencing. In transpersonal language, this is
often referred to as being “un-egoic.” The quality of experience of
the witness is often seen as very calm, contented, peaceful and
accepting and this has obvious benefits for facilitating all sorts
of things that can occur.
A group can have a collective “life” and many would see this as
one of groupwork’s most precious features. However, group leaders
can fear this life, which is why they may collude with some serious
areas of disfunctionality within the group. Working with fear is
key, both in himself and within the group. The traditional image of
the group leader has been one where the leader is the expert, who
manages and controls what occurs. This sometimes leads to
potentially authoritarian behaviours, which immediately put
participants in touch with their inner child! When emotions are
heightened, the impulse is to exert control, to “do” something. I
have very frequently observed facilitators do just that, for
example “take control” and consciously exert a controlling
influence on the process of the group. This behaviour, when done
out of awareness, interrupts the flow of the group process and is
obviously coming out of the leader’s agenda. Alternatively, the
leader will do what the group wants, and thus collude, a common
example being overly concerned that the group is getting what it
needs. This can be powerfully destructive when working in
organisations, where the organisation has an expectation for the
outcome of the event. The real issue that is bugging the group does
not get dealt with. We can be so eager to please, to “perform”, to
“get a result”, that in trying to meet the group’s perceived need
we fail to offer an intervention that addresses the
disfunctionality. The group may take part in “group flight”, for
example when it avoids what is uncomfortable or has an exaggerated
response to an issue and strongly shuts off from possible
exploration. A typical example may be deflection, when the group
may persist in talking about something that is tangential to the
actual and painful experience that is in front of them. Recently I
led a group, which, despite several comments from me, insisted
emphatically in discussing organisational issues rather than
focusing on the painful reality that change was threatening their
very livelihoods. The conversation had an artificial air to it and
as the witness I was aware that I was feeling baffled as to where
they were going. Of course, that was just it! They were too! In the
end I very firmly stopped them, shared my own experience and
described what I had observed the group doing, so that they were
able to become aware of their process and own the pain they were
feeling.
In being present, the facilitator needs a strong sense of self,
to be able in the middle of whatever is happening to pause, check
himself out and notice how he is feeling and what is present for
him. He also needs to check the group at its multitude of levels
and again his own centredness and also his awareness of what the
group needs right now. From his space of centredness he can choose
his intervention. He therefore needs to know his own inner space of
calm and recognise what can get in the way for him, noticing too
that the group will mirror his own process. He will not be
deflected by fear of other emotions like anger or upset, or fear
itself. I remember facilitating a group of people who were so angry
that they raged, with full verbal violence, for two hours about
what they saw as injustice and bad treatment. There was no other
intervention available to me than to sit with them, be present and
genuinely empathise. It occurred to me that I could simply reflect
back to them what they were saying. After a while they started to
see what they were experiencing and what had happened to them,
almost from another viewpoint. It was almost as if they were able
to join me in being the witness of the event. At the end several
came up and shook my hand: “thanks, that was just what we
needed”.
In intervening when the leaver said he was going to leave the
group prematurely, I accessed my presence and worked from that
space to help the group deal with the change. In doing this I
believe I model for groups another way in which they can manage
their own process, and in doing this I believe the facilitator can
offer what is one of the most powerful offerings a group
facilitator has in their toolbags. Working with presence is not
about doing things; it is about a way of being, knowing your space
of being and staying right there with whatever happens. As such it
serves as an invitation to others to literally BE themselves.
John Gloster-Smith, MAHPP.
Bibliography
Yalom : "The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy". (Basic
Books)
Heron : “The Complete Facilitator’s Handbook” (Kogan Page)
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