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Extracts from a paper about working with group process as an
instrument for growth and change for the group's members
(While the paper is primarily related to group therapy, the points
made are also applicable to other uses of group work)
In group process, the interaction between the members of a
group, it is the group and the group dynamics which are the central
focus, rather than the leader and her personality and technique,
and these can be seen as a powerful instrument for growth and
change for its members.
The main arguments in favour of the use of groups in therapy
centre on the value of the group as a social system: the group
provides support for each other; the individual finds that his
experience is shared by others and therefore feels universal;
helping others reinforces self-esteem in the helper; seeing others
benefiting can give hope to the client; the corrective
recapitulation of the primary family group; the development of
socialising techniques through open feedback providing information
about maladaptive social behaviour; observation of modelling;
interpersonal learning in that the personality is in part the
product of interaction with other significant human beings. As
Yalom says, "a freely interactive group, with few structural
restrictions, will, in time, develop into a social microcosm of the
participative members". Many of the problems that people bring to
therapy are the product of social adjustment. The client's
pathology will in time be evident to the group and through feedback
and self-observation the client's awareness will be enhanced. The
client can then experiment with other ways of being.
Group members operate at various system levels simultaneously,
the intrapersonal, the interpersonal and the systems level. The
systems processes are the dynamic patterns of interaction that
develop between people over time and create a way of being
together. Such system processes affect the way people feel about
themselves and each other as well as the way they behave in that
environment. These system processes account for the whole being
greater than the sum of the parts. The therapist holistically
attends both to the parts and to the whole, and thus has the
complex task of tracking the three levels of activity. The group is
seen as a living organism. Phenomenologically, there are four
space-time zones, here-and-now (the group-environment field of
group members' experiences and actions as represented in the here
and now), there-and-now (what is currently happening for each
outside the group), here-and-then (the groups's history from
previous sessions), there-and-then (past history of group members).
The field exists both for individuals and for groups.
The group may also be viewed developmentally. It is important to
be aware of what stage a group has reached in its evolution and
needs to work through each stage before taking on tasks appropriate
to the next stage. The Tuckman and Jensen model is frequently used;
their stages are forming, storming, norming and performing, to
which others have added mourning as a concluding stage. In the
first, superficial contact and exploration, group members are
unsure and anxious, looking to the leader for protection and
concerned about identity, process and safety. The leader engages in
contracting and setting boundaries, encouraging interpersonal
contact and building a climate of trust. The second stage is one of
conflict, in which the testing and probing of each other takes
place, and projections are reality-tested. The group's rules and
behaviour norms are explored. More open and confrontative contact
between members occurs. The major issues at this stage are
influence, authority and control. Confluence and isolation may
occur here by, for example, the tendency of persons to adopt roles
or factions or habitual ways of relating. Groups may establish
distinctive group cultures. Finally the group reaches a point of
high cohesiveness, in which real contact occurs between members of
the group. Members behave interdependently and intimately, with a
high level of trust and self-disclosure. A closure phase exists
although not all groups enter this phase fully. The leader here
helps the group to arrive at a closure and acknowledge any
unfinished business. The group says "goodbye", examines any
learnings and possibly plans for the transfer of those learnings
into the "real" world. This "completion" phase is important in
moving through satisfaction to withdrawal, including a mourning for
the ending and acceptance of an experience that cannot continue.
Groups do not necessarily move easily from one stage to the next
and can go back. Clearly the leader needs to be alert to any stuck
points that may develop.
Individuals may explore their needs, both individually and
collectively. Behaviour may take on a cooperative or confrontative
pattern as those needs are worked out in the group context. Such
patterns are the group process. They need to be tracked by the
leader and if necessary challenged to help the working through of
the process. Thus interruptions will need to be addressed. The
group may need to attend fully to its senses if it is to produce
accurate observations of what it needs. A group may spend a long
time discussing, say, points of administration to deflect from
awareness of painful needs. An individual may need prompting by the
group to mobilise in the most contactful expression of his
feelings. Understandings from the action may need to be expressed,
including feedback from several people, so that learning can occur
and withdrawal be complete. A person waits until the cycle is
complete before bringing up her own concern. A person's anger
expressed at the end of the session when there is insufficient time
to work it through may leave the group with a sense of
incompleteness and dissatisfaction.
As facilitator, the leader plays a crucial role. Initially she
helps to establish safety by making clear and holding the basic
ground-rules. These include: confidentiality, speaking in the first
person, converting questions into statements, avoiding advice,
speaking directly to specific persons and making eye contact,
attending to here-and-now experiences and to bodily responses, not
interrupting another's work and respecting each other's needs and
boundaries, and using responses to enhance group process. The
leader may work to help the group to focus on the here-and-now.
This includes: bringing "outside" statements into the present and
from the abstract to the specific, encouraging responses from the
others, teaching persons to offer and receive feedback, helping
them to differentiate one person from another in their attitudes
towards others in the group, helping people to express "what is not
being said" and interrupting the content flow to attend to
"here-and-now" concerns. The aim is often to get the group to focus
upon itself. The leader helps the group to observe its process. She
needs to be able to recognise it herself, for, by example:
observing non-verbal data (eg. seating, lateness, attention,
movements, glances, posture); noticing what is omitted or perhaps
pointing out that when someone speaks he not only speaks for him
but also for others (or, when they say “we”, they really mean “I”);
incongruences; tensions within the group such as a struggle for
dominance or the fear of leaving the group; scapegoating, in which
the group is focusing its projections on an individual rather than
asking "what is happening for me?" and looking at what is happening
to the group as a group; identifying repetitive patterns; noticing
what is keeping the individual or group from working on the primary
task; and tuning into her own feelings and views and expressing
them where appropriate. However the aim is to help the group to
assume a process orientation itself. The leader may at times make
comments on the mass group process, such as the avoiding of
anxiety-laden or painful issues ("group flight"), or
intellectualisation, or restrictive patterns such as “taking
turns”.
The leader is thus the manager of a learning process, adding the
learning task of awareness of group processes to the task of
intrapersonal and interpersonal awareness, working as a therapist
to an individual, a facilitator of interpersonal processes or
consultant to the group-as-a-system. The skill is to hold a whole
number of individual agendas at once and to use his range of
facilitative interventions at all levels.
As a social microcosm, and when skilfully led, the group
provides enormous potential for learning in interactional process.
Given that each person's identity and sense of self is a product of
interaction with others, the group has considerable therapeutic
power.
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