With groups my work is both educational and interactive.
The group experience, as I facilitate, becomes a live social interaction played out in real time. Within the group setting, as in the world around us, people will settle into being who they are. You may feel initially exposed or uncertain in a strange setting with others, not sure of your role or expectations. You may notice some comfort or curiosity with some group members and perhaps some uncertainty or sense of challenge with others. As group members begin to talk and interact, however, you will soon discover that whatever feelings you are having, you are not alone.
This simple fact that “people are more alike than otherwise” achieves an extraordinary lucidity as group members begin to recognize aspects of themselves in others and discover that they want to know more. This creates an atmosphere of curiosity and pulls the group towards openness and emotionally honest sharing. People become interested in each others life stories and begin to learn from one another. This is a primary strength of group work as contrasted to social settings outside of group where clarity of expression and emotional honesty are often masked behind competitive aims and defensive posturing.
As it turns out, however, another strength of group work is precisely that what happens outside the group will be brought into the group. As group members begin to relax into their familiar social selves, openness and emotional honesty will at times be interrupted as competitive aims and/or defensive posturing find their way into certain interactions between group members. This too is live social interaction in real time and becomes part of the group work. As facilitator I track such interactions as I also pay attention to how other group members react or respond. At particular junctures I will stop the action and invite group members to discuss what they saw and heard. As the group again returns to an atmosphere of openness and emotional honesty group members can then take in a larger view of how they affect and are affected by others.
Such illumination through open group discussion demonstrates the essence of process work and becomes a learning foundation that will help you better understand the social worlds around you and, more specifically, to identify and assume a more clear ownership of your roles in significant relationships with others.
New Group (to be announced)
