People in groups: Dynamic and therapeutic aspects

The author differentiates between a sociological-interactional (horizontal) axis and a psychological-motivational (vertical) axis in the group, and discusses the socio- and psychodynamics both of and in the group from each of these points of view. In group therapy, five phases are described: 1) exploratory contact; 2) regression; 3) catharsis; 4) insight; and 5) social learning. Group psychotherapy with large diagnostically heterogeneous groups in a hospital setting, small diagnostically homogeneous groups, and group discussions with patients' relatives are all described. In addition, attention is paid to experiential psychodynamic group process groups (analytic self-experience groups), which provide young psychotherapists with the opportunity to gain insight into both groups and the psychodynamics stimulated within this framework. The training of group therapists should include, after academic studies, clinical experience, individual psychotherapeutic training, an experiential group, cotherapy, group therapeutic work under expert supervision, and theoretical training.     

Identity as self-transformation: emotional conflicts and their metamorphosis in memory

This paper develops the thesis that personal identity is neither to be taken in terms of an unchanging self-sufficient ‘substance’ nor in terms of selfhood ‘without substance,’ i.e. as fluctuating processes of pure relationality and subject-less activity. Instead, identity is taken as self-transformation that is bound to particular embodied individuals and surpasses them as individuated entities. The paper is structured in three parts. Part I describes the experiential givenness of conflicts that support our sense of self-transformation. While the first part develops an inter-subjective topography of emotional movements, the second part pays attention to their temporal dimension. We work with conflicts and get transformed by them also in the way we remember them. Part II focuses on the process of self-understanding that accompanies conflicts and their metamorphosis in memory. Part III compares and discusses different models of a ‘relational ontology’ of the person, which question the idea that we are defined only by how we define ourselves—just as they question the idea that one’s identity is independent of how one relates to one’s having changed.     

Eating disorders as psychosomatic illness the implications for treatment

Abstract

This paper describes a body of theory which points to the possibility that eating disorders can be seen as psychosomatic illness, which is to say a symbolization of affect via the body rather than with words. The author concludes from this that eating disorders may respond better to non-verbal experiential therapies than they do to verbal therapy. She then describes four years of work with groups of eating-disordered women using non-verbal experiential therapies and suggests that the improvement in their symptoms may be the result of these methodologies and that her hypothesis merits further testing and exploration.     

社会排斥对消费选择偏向的影响：怀旧的调节作用及社会联结的中介作用

社会排斥会导致许多消极影响,人们会尝试通过各种策略对此进行缓解,而消费是其中重要的一种应对方式。本文通过3个实验考察了社会排斥和消费选择偏向（体验性消费vs.实物性消费）的关系,同时探讨了怀旧的调节作用和社会联结的中介作用。结果发现,社会排斥可以提高消费者对体验性消费的偏好,怀旧调节了社会排斥与体验性消费偏向的关系,并通过社会联结的中介作用进一步缓冲了社会排斥对消费选择偏向的影响。     

The development and exploration of group experiential training models

This paper describes the development and changes in the cognitive and experiential portions of a group psychotherapy training program. The integration of these two components has shifted during the two decades of the program. Educational strengths and limitations of the different models are described. The two current models are of 16 weeks duration and begin with four didactic sessions. The succeeding 12 sessions consist of 1 hour of experiential group followed immediately by a 30-minute review. In one of these models the experiential group is leaderless. An illustration of the dynamics and educational potential of this leaderless experiential group is presented.     

Dream symbolization in light of analytic and experiential thinking

This paper compares the analytic and experiential approaches to dreams in order to illuminate the intrinsic and necessary relationships between the two understandings. It describes how dream work reflects the bimodalness of symbolism, thought and ultimately human consciousness. An extended example of dream work reflecting both analytic and experiential modalities is presented.     

Training staff in multiple family therapy in a children's psychiatric hospital: from theory to practice

This article describes a systematized method for training clinical staff from a variety of mental health professions while implementing supportive, process‐oriented multiple family therapy (MFT) in a children's psychiatric hospital. The model uses a step‐by‐step approach based upon learning objectives specific to the theory and practice of MFT for each stage of the process. External consultants skilled and experienced in MFT supported tuition in the initial stages. The method employs seminars with theoretical and experiential components, highlighting the major conceptual features of group, family therapy and MFT. Advanced stages of the training model include experiential learning in small groups and ongoing peer group supervision with live families. The systematic procedure has relevance for ongoing supervision, research and best standards of clinical practice in the hospital.     

Gaming, Texting, Learning? Teaching Engineering Ethics Through Students’ Lived Experiences With Technology

This paper examines how young peoples’ lived experiences with personal technologies can be used to teach engineering ethics in a way which facilitates greater engagement with the subject. Engineering ethics can be challenging to teach: as a form of practical ethics, it is framed around future workplace experience in a professional setting which students are assumed to have no prior experience of. Yet the current generations of engineering students, who have been described as ‘digital natives’, do however have immersive personal experience with digital technologies; and experiential learning theory describes how students learn ethics more successfully when they can draw on personal experience which give context and meaning to abstract theories. This paper reviews current teaching practices in engineering ethics; and examines young people’s engagement with technologies including cell phones, social networking sites, digital music and computer games to identify social and ethical elements of these practices which have relevance for the engineering ethics curricula. From this analysis three case studies are developed to illustrate how facets of the use of these technologies can be drawn on to teach topics including group work and communication; risk and safety; and engineering as social experimentation. Means for bridging personal experience and professional ethics when teaching these cases are discussed. The paper contributes to research and curriculum development in engineering ethics education, and to wider education research about methods of teaching ‘the net generation’.     

T groups: An essential model in the training of group therapists

This paper argues for the T group (training group) model as the preferred experiential aspect of training in group psychotherapy. The rationale for preferring the T group model centers around aspects of: 1) contractual clarity; 2) the management of the learning regression; 3) the effectiveness of the T group as a professional holding environment; and 4) the development of a professional identity as a group therapist. Some difficulties with the model are also noted, and some case examples are offered to illustrate various aspects of the work within the T group model.     

Theme centered group psychotherapy with psychiatrically hospitalized preadolescent boys

This paper describes how a particular content can be ascribed to verbal group work with psychiatrically hospitalized children. This focus can then provide the basis for psychotherapeutic intervention in which resistance and transference are interpreted while underlying conflicts are uncovered and worked on. The theme of the group, health issues and sexuality, was derived from the children's expressed needs on the unit. The use of psychotherapy as a basis for subsequent education about these health issues is discussed. Also described is the way in which the verbal medium was used in conjunction with other unit procedures.     

Transformative Training: A Year‐Long Multicultural Counseling Seminar for Graduate Students

This article describes a year‐long multicultural training seminar for psychology and social work interns in a university counseling center. The experiential, cross‐disciplinary, peer‐based multiformat structure of the group is discussed. The foundational philosophy, week‐to‐week mechanics, and trainee reactions over the last 7 years of conducting this seminar are reviewed. Este artículo presenta un programa de entrenamiento multicultural para estudiantes graduados en un centra de consejería universitario. Se discuten los componentes experienciales y multi‐disciplinarios del programa, y el uso de distintos métodos y formatos. Se repasa las fundaciones filosóficas, los mecanismos utilizados semana por semana, y las reacciones de los estudiantes.     

The Structure of Social Exchange in Self-help Support Groups: Development of a Measure

Self-help support groups are indigenous community resources designed to help people manage a variety of personal challenges, from alcohol abuse to xeroderma pigmentosum. The social exchanges that occur during group meetings are central to understanding how people benefit from participation. This paper examines the different types of social exchange behaviors that occur during meetings, using two studies to develop empirically distinct scales that reliably measure theoretically important types of exchange. Resource theory informed the initial measurement development efforts. Exploratory factor analyses from the first study led to revisions in the factor structure of the social exchange scales. The revised measure captured the exchange of emotional support, experiential information, humor, unwanted behaviors, and exchanges outside meetings. Confirmatory factor analyses from a follow-up study with a different sample of self-help support groups provided good model fit, suggesting the revised structure accurately represented the data. Further, the scales demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity with related constructs. Future research can use the scales to identify aspects of social exchange that are most important in improving health outcomes among self-help support group participants. Groups can use the scales in practice to celebrate strengths and address weaknesses in their social exchange dynamics.     

Training Groups: A Basic Life Cycle Model

This article describes a group training model that differs from the traditional T-group model in structure, leadership, and assumptions about learning. The life-cycle model of training is based on situational leadership, differential structures depending on group maturity, and integration of conceptual and experiential learning experiences.     

Speech norms and perceptions of ethno-linguistic group differences: Toward a conceptual and research framework

Perceptions of social group membership are crucial both to social behaviour generally, and to social conflict: The basis for ingroup versus outgroup distinctions and the personal and social significance of such judgments are thus important areas of study. This paper describes a model of social norms as it applies to speech use and, in particular, the role of speech in perceptions of social groups. The context of this discussion is a general research and conceptual framework for studying perceptions of and reactions to social group differences. The framework is in three stages, consisting of the recognition of group differences, the ‘definition’ or evaluative interpretation of a given speech act, and the development of a ‘problem resolution’ or social change strategy. Social group distinctions are hypothesized to be based on shared norms, modelled here as structured expectancies regarding the behaviour appropriate to specific social contexts. Norms are seen as varying in their content, i.e. the specific behaviours that are socially evaluated, in their clarity, which controls the strength and certainty of social judgments based on norms, and in the size and nature of the social group sharing a given norm. The specific components of the norm model are discussed in light of existing data on language behaviour. The second stage of the model is briefly discussed via social psychological judgments that are hypothesized to control responses to a given speech event. This framework is hoped to have heuristic value in studying language use and social processes.     

Chinese College Students’ Experiences in the Encounter Group

In theory, the encounter group is well suited to addressing the problems of Chinese college students, but in practice, significant conflicts exist between the nature of the encounter group and the internalized beliefs of this group of students. This brief report identifies six areas of notable conflict in the therapeutic process: freedom of expression, belongingness, learning from diversity, impacts of an exam-oriented education, social inequalities, and indirect communication. The advantages for the encounter group members were the opportunities to enjoy self-expression, gain acceptance regardless of social status, learn about differences between themselves and other members, provide nonstandardized answers, increase the level of self-advocacy, and feel safe directly expressing themselves. On the negative side, group members may have felt distressed due to the conflicts between the basic character of the encounter group and their own cultural beliefs. The limitations of this study are found in the sample types, my multiple roles and biases as the author and group leader, and the features of the encounter groups conducted. Nevertheless, this brief report may increase both therapeutic applicability of the encounter group to Chinese college students and the level of cultural competence in group psychotherapists who may use the encounter group or work with this population.     

Seeking revenge or seeking reconciliation? How concern for social‐image and felt shame helps explain responses in reciprocal intergroup conflict

In conflicts with reciprocal violence, individuals belong to a group that has been both perpetrator and victim. In a field experiment in Liberia, West Africa, we led participants (N = 146) to focus on their group as either perpetrator or victim in order to investigate its effect on orientation towards inter‐group reconciliation or revenge. Compared to a perpetrator focus, a victim focus led to slightly more revenge orientation and moderately less reconciliation orientation. The effect of the focus manipulation on revenge orientation was fully mediated, and reconciliation orientation partly mediated, by viewing the in‐group's social‐image as at risk. Independent of perpetrator or victim focus, shame (but not guilt) was a distinct explanation of moderately more reconciliation orientation. This is consistent with a growing body of work demonstrating the pro‐social potential of shame. Taken together, results suggest how groups in reciprocal conflict might be encouraged towards reconciliation and away from revenge by feeling shame for their wrongdoing and viewing their social‐image as less at risk. As victims and perpetrators are widely thought to have different orientations to inter‐group reconciliation and revenge, we suggest that work on reciprocal conflicts should account for the fact that people can belong to a group that has been both perpetrator and victim.     

Dream appreciation group: A model of stress prevention for medical students

This paper describes a pilot study in stress prevention for medical students, utilizing Montegue Ullman's process in a dream appreciation group. Relevant literature on the use of dreams in a group is reviewed. In this model, group dynamics and interaction are not analyzed, rather the dream holds center stage. The technique of working with dreams in a group is described, and selected vignettes are presented to document the process. This study suggests that in the presence of a supportive group atmosphere, unconscious conflicts can be alleviated or resolved so as to enhance medical students' evolving personal and professional identity.This paper is based on a presentation at the thirty-first winter meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Scottsdale, Arizona, December 11, 1987.     

It's not my fault,it's theirs: Explanatory style of bullying targets with unipolar depression and its susceptibility to short‐term therapeutical modification

Depression is one of the most frequent psychic impairments prevalent among bullying targets. It is typically characterized by an internal, global, and stable explanatory style. However, whether bullying targets with depression would apply this style to explain their social conflicts at work was unclear. Therefore, individuals who had been bullied and developed depression were compared to individuals with depression who had not been bullied. Both groups differed significantly regarding their explanatory style, as individuals with bullying experience made more external attributions to explain social conflicts they had experienced both at work and in their private lives. This preference did not change over the course of a 6‐week in‐patient psychotherapy programme.