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PART II
Teaching Group
Counseling Courses
and Training
Group Leaders
Introduction
It is common
practice to combine both the didactic and the experiential aspects of learning
in group work courses, but doing so requires that educators address a number of
ethical considerations. Group work
educators must manage multiple roles and fulfill many responsibilities to their
trainees. In experiential training,
participants engage in self-exploration and deal with interpersonal issues
within the training group/class as a way of learning how to best facilitate
groups. The potential risks of
experiential methods are offset by the clear benefits to participants who
become personally involved in experiential group work as a supplement to
didactic approaches in group courses.
Many group work educators see a need for an experiential component to
assist students in acquiring the skills necessary to function as effective
group leaders.
Below
are the CACREP (2009) Standards that apply to the field of group work. Note that section “e” specifies that students
should participate in a small group activity for a minimum of 10 clock hours
over the course of one academic term. This small group experience is typically
an integral part of the one group course that most programs require. Instructors handle this small group aspect in
many different ways, and there are some potential ethical issues that focus
around this experiential aspect of the group course. This article addresses many of these ethical
concerns that group work educators and students are often challenged by and
have concerns about.
GROUP WORK -
studies that provide both theoretical and experiential understandings of group
purpose, development, dynamics, theories, methods and skills, and other
group approaches in a multicultural society, including all of the following:
a. principles of group dynamics, including group
process components, developmental stage theories, group members’ roles and
behaviors, and therapeutic factors of group work,
b. group leadership or facilitation styles and
approaches, including characteristics of various types of group leaders and
leadership styles,
c. theories of group counseling, including
commonalties, distinguishing characteristics, and pertinent research and
literature,
d. group counseling methods, including group
counselor orientations and behaviors, appropriate selection criteria and
methods, and methods of evaluation of effectiveness, and
e. direct experiences where students participate
in a small group activity, approved by the program, for a minimum of 10 clock
hours over the course of one academic term.
Training
Standards for Group Trainees
For proficient
group leaders to emerge, a training program must make group work a
priority. Unfortunately, in some
master’s programs in counseling not even one group course is required. In some programs such a course is still an
elective. In those programs that do
require course work in group counseling, there is typically one course that
covers both the didactic and experiential aspects of group process. While some counselor training programs have
more than one group course, many have only one course devoted to teaching
knowledge and skills for group counselors (Wilson, Rapin, Haley-Banez, 2004). It is a major undertaking to adequately train
group counselors in a single course!
When it comes to
training doctoral level psychologists, there is evidence that suggests that
comprehensive training standards have not been universally or rigorously
followed. In a survey of group psychotherapy
training during predoctoral psychology internship, Markus and King (2003) found
that, much like graduate school programs, predoctoral clinical psychology
internships do not routinely provide adequate group therapy training. The results of Markus and King’s survey
suggested that there is lack of depth and breadth of group therapy didactic
offerings to psychology interns.
For
practitioners to become competent group facilitators specialized training is
essential as a way to obtain proficiency and expertise in group process (Markus
& King, 2003). The Association for
Specialists in Group Work (ASGW, 2000) specifies basic aspects in the education
and training of group counselors: didactic course work, being involved in
experiential group activities, leadership opportunities, and receiving
competent supervision. The revised Professional Standards for the Training of
Group Workers (ASGW, 2000) specifies
two levels of competencies and related training. A set of core knowledge competencies and skill
competencies provide the foundation on which specialized training is built.
At a minimum, one group course should be included in a training program,
and it should be structured to help students acquire the basic knowledge and
skills needed to facilitate a group. These
group skills are best mastered through supervised practice, which should
include observation and participation in a group experience. The Council for Accreditation of Counseling
and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2009) standards call for students in
an entry-level program to have a theoretical knowledge and an understanding of
group process. This knowledge includes
the purpose of groups, developmental stages of a group, group dynamics, theory
applied to practice, methods in group work, styles of group leadership, and
ethical and legal issues in group work.
The standards also call for skill development necessary to facilitate
groups.
Both CACREP and
ASGW training guidelines include an experiential component to training group
leaders. CACREP (2009) has a 10-hour
requirement for direct experience as a participant in a small group. ASGW (2000) requires a minimum of 10 hours of
observation and participation in a small group as a member or a leader, with 20
hours being recommended.
The core competencies
delineated in the ASGW (2000) training standards are considered the benchmarks
for training group workers. The current
trend in training group leaders focuses on learning group process by becoming
involved in supervised experiences. Both
direct participation in planned and supervised small groups and clinical
experience in leading various groups under careful supervision are needed to
equip leaders with the skills to meet the challenges of group work. Barlow (2004) describes a strategic 3-year plan
to teach beginning, intermediate, and advanced group skills. Her article describes 4 ways designed to
teach group skills: experiential, supervision, observation, and academic. Van Velsor (2004) describes her training
program for students working with children’s groups. Her course combines a didactic component with
observation, an experiential component involving facilitation of children’s
groups, and a supervision component done in pairs and also in groups.
Markus and King
(2003) maintain that comprehensive training must include intensive supervision
by a competent group therapist. Although
Markus and King endorse group supervision of group therapy as a powerful
cognitive and emotional learning experience, they report that the majority of
internships that provide supervision of group trainees tend to use the
one-to-one model rather than offer opportunities for group supervision. In addition to one supervisor working with
one supervisee, there are other models for supervision of group
leadership. Group supervision of
multiple group leaders is one alternative that has many advantages in terms of
learning about group process as well as getting supervision (DeLucia- Waack and
Fauth, 2004).
Wilson, Rapin,
and Haley-Banez (2004) indicate that during the past 20 years, ASGW has
developed three foundational documents to guide training and practice in group
work. These documents include: (a) Best Practice Guidelines (ASGW, 2008),
which address guidelines in the planning, implementation, processing, and evaluation
of group work practice; (b) Multicultural
and Social Justice Principles for Group Work (ASGW, 2012); and (c) Professional Standards for the Training of
Group Workers (ASGW, 2000). In their
article, Wilson, Rapin, and Haley-Banez (2004) describe the contents of these
foundational documents and discuss how they can be used in training group
workers.
One
controversial ethical issue in the preparation of group workers involves the
combining of experiential and didactic methods in training group leaders, which
is a common practice. Merta, Wolfgang, and McNeil (1993) found that a large
majority of counselor educators continue to use the experiential group in
preparing group counselors. Furthermore, there is significant variation in
using alternative training models, and numerous safeguards are employed. Many
group counselor educators consider the experiential component to be essential
in the teaching of group-counseling courses. Although there are certain
problems in teaching students how groups function by involving them on an
experiential level, these difficulties can be resolved. Clear guidelines need
to be established so that students know what their rights and responsibilities
are. This arrangement does put a bit more pressure on both the instructor and
the students. It calls for honesty, maturity, and professionalism.
In addition to
the challenges of combining didactic and experiential approaches, those who
teach group counseling courses are faced with many challenges in their attempt
to meet the professional standards for the training of group workers (Guth
& McDonnell, 2004). According to
O’Halloran and McCartney (2004), a major challenge in teaching group counseling
in an entry-level program is effectively covering the standards set forth by
ASGW (2000) and CACREP (2009). Akos,
Goodnough, and Milsom (2004) address the challenge of maximizing a single group
course in preparing counselors for doing group work in the schools. Akos and her colleagues recommend a number of
strategies in training school counselors, one of which is infusing group
concepts throughout the curriculum. They
also recommend selecting practicum and internship sites based on opportunities
to use group work. Killacky and Hulse-Killacy (2004) make a case for teaching
generic group competency skills across the counselor education curriculum. Other writers stress the importance of
incorporating multicultural issues in training group counselors (Bemak &
Chung, 2004; DeLucia-Waack &
Donigian, 2004). The Association for
Specialists in Group Work has published the Multicultural
and Social Justice Principles for Group Work (ASGW, 2012) that enable group
workers to sensitively address issues of classism, sexism, racism,
heterosexism, and ableism. Indeed, there
is increased recognition that all group work should address multicultural and
social justice issues, and thus, effective training of group counselors implies
addressing these dimensions (Hays, Arredondo, Gladding, and Toporek, 2010; DeLucia-Waack
and Donigian, 2004; Ivey, Pedersen, and Ivey; 2008).
Multiple
Roles of Group Work Educators
Faculty who teach group courses often function in
multiple roles: facilitator of a group, teacher, evaluator, and supervisor. At
various times educators may teach group process concepts, lead a demonstration
group in class, set up an exercise to illustrate an intervention in a group
situation, and evaluate students’ work. Educators may have a monitoring
function, especially in identifying and intervening when students demonstrate
bizarre behavior, are unable to give or receive feedback, or are unable to
relate to others in even the most basic manner. Group educators have a
responsibility to the students, the profession, the community, and to the
training institution, to act in those cases where students in a group course
give evidence that they are personally not suited to working as group
facilitators. Faculty members who teach group classes often assume a
supervisory role, observing trainees as they facilitate a group. If an
instructor also facilitates a process group, or an interpersonal
process-oriented group, this person will at times carry out therapeutic roles
and functions with these same students. Although the instructor may avoid
becoming a therapist for a student group, he or she might be called upon to
assist participants in identifying personal problems that are likely to
interfere with their ability to function effectively in group work. Although
blending these roles does present potential ethical problems, the literature
reveals that various strategies are being employed in the preparation of group
counselors to mitigate these problems. Merta,
Wolfgang, and McNeil (1993) admit that no one training model or combination of
safeguards is apt to solve the dilemma of protecting students from adverse dual
relationships and at the same time providing them with the best possible
training.
Educational
and therapeutic dimensions are often blended in group courses to enable
students to obtain both personal benefits and conceptual knowledge and to
acquire leadership skills. Sometimes, the person teaching a group course may
have no formal preparation or course work in group counseling, may never have
been a participant in a group, and may not have had any opportunity to be
supervised leading a group. One core ethical issue is the level of competence
of the person teaching the group course.
Faculty sometimes functions in multiple
roles and relationships with students and trainees without establishing and
clarifying appropriate boundaries. One example of such an abuse involves group
work educators who accept students as therapy clients in their private
practices. Other potential areas of abuse include professors who reveal
personal disclosures of students in a training group to other faculty, professors
who are unable to establish appropriate professional boundaries, and professors
who use the training group as a forum for dealing with their own personal
problems. Faculty have sometimes demonstrated poor judgment or misused power,
improperly managed multiple roles and relationships, or acted in some other way
to bring harm to a student. Some students who have been in a group course have
talked about the experience as being anything but growth-producing or a
positive learning experience. These students have learned what not to do in
their own groups as a result of participating in a group course. For example,
in some cases students have not been given any preparation for a group
experience and no attempt has been made to provide for informed consent. In other
cases, students are sometimes left alone to form their own process group, which
is a required part of the group course, with very little guidance and no
supervision from the faculty member
teaching the course. Undirected group experiences have the potential for being
aimless or even damaging. Conflicts may not be properly addressed, and
scapegoating of a particular member may take place. There may also be undue
group pressure for members to reveal personal secrets and hidden agendas can
result in the group getting stuck.
Some
professional educators have expressed concern about the potential pitfalls of
experiential training or about the multiple roles and relationships involved in
teaching group work. Davenport (2004) observes that the practice of having
professors or supervised doctoral students lead experiential groups for
students in masters-level group counseling courses is widespread. She raises
ethical concerns over this practice and suggests an alternative training model. One aspects of Davenport’s program is a
prerequisite for students taking the advanced group counseling class to be in a
semester-long growth group experience, which is led by a licensed
professional. These groups are not led
by either a program instructor or an advanced student. Staff members from her university’s student counseling
center often provide this service.
In
writing about ethical dimensions of teaching group counseling, Kottler (2004)
observes that dual and multiple relationships are not necessarily problematic
and that they can add richness and complexity to life. He adds that multiple
relationships in training become problematic when they are exploitive and when
educators misuse their power by taking advantage of others in a dual role. Kottler lists the following as ways to
safeguard trainees in an experiential group: providing informed consent, so
that students know what they are getting into;
offering trainees the right to pass; and not evaluating students on what
they say or do not say. Kottler makes a
very important point in teaching group counseling when he says that the key is
not what we are doing, rather how we are doing it.
Although
some abuses in the attempt to train group workers using experiential approaches
have been documented, I do not think that this warrants the conclusion that all
such experiences are inappropriate or unethical. Furthermore, it is a mistake
to conclude that group work educators should be restricted to a singular role
of providing didactic information. From my point of view, some faculties who
have negative attitudes toward anything but a didactic approach to teaching
group counseling are not recognizing the potential benefits of this approach.
Overcorrection of a problem of potential abuse does not seem justified to me.
Teaching group process by involving students in personal ways is the best way
for them to learn how to eventually set up and facilitate groups. I am in agreement with Stockton, Morran, and
Krieger (2004) who indicate that there is a fine line between offering experiential
activities and safeguarding against gaining information that could be used in
evaluating students. Faculty who use
experiential approaches are often involved in balancing multiple roles, which
requires consistent monitoring of boundaries.
Stockton and colleagues emphasize that group work educators need to
exert caution so that they offer training that is both ethical and effective.
Although it is essential to secure informed consent at the outset of a member’s
participation in a group, various aspects of the consent process may need to be
revisited at different phases of a group.
When informed consent is done effectively, it helps promote individual
autonomy, engages members in a collaborative process, and reduces the
likelihood of exploitation or harm (Barnett, Wise, Johnson-Greene, & Bucky,
2007; Wheeler & Bertram, 2012).
The
Scope of My Work
Currently, I teach group courses on both
the undergraduate and graduate levels, and in addition, I offer training and
supervision workshops in group facilitation for both students and mental health
professionals. In each of these courses or workshops I blend didactic and
experiential approaches, and in doing so I assume multiple roles. In many
cases, the courses and workshops that I conduct are composed of voluntary
participants, and this brings a different dimension to these experiences than
if I were teaching a required course. In addition to teaching group process as
a part of the undergraduate program, I also function as a supervisor of
students in small groups (as a part of the group course). I facilitate groups
in which students in these classes are exploring their personal concerns and a
variety of interpersonal issues that emerge during the unfolding of the group.
The
students who sign up for my undergraduate human services program group course
are highly motivated and generally willing to engage in significant
self-exploration in the context of the group course. In my role as a professor, I am required to
grade students, but I am not expected to evaluate students for retention in the
major. If I were on a committee charged with making determinations regarding
acceptance or dismissal from a training program, and if I was expected to use
this information about students that I acquired from the group courses, this
might prove to be ethically problematic.
Practicum
in Group Leadership Course
One of the undergraduate courses I
regularly teach at California State University, Fullerton, is Practicum in Group Leadership (see
Corey, 1981, 2012a, 2012b; Corey, Corey, & Corey, 2014). In this course,
students get a balanced experience of didactic material on group process and
theories of group, opportunities to lead and co-lead self-directed groups where
they can apply what they are learning, supervised experience in group
leadership, experiential learning involving working on their own personal
issues in a group, and supervision sessions that are therapeutic as well as
educational. Thus, in a single course students are exposed to a variety of ways
of learning about groups, both cognitive and experiential. I cite this class as
an example of the many group-leadership courses that typically combine academic
learning with opportunities for personal learning.
In
the Practicum in Group Leadership course students are screened both individually
and in a small group before they are allowed to enroll in the course. The
course includes supervised experience in co-leading a group-oriented class on
the campus and students meet for weekly supervision as a group with the faculty
person supervising their work as co-leaders. In addition, students meet with me
once a week for a 3-hour class session. Each class meeting begins with a
didactic focus: a short lecture on group process issues or a consideration of a
specific theory of group work and a demonstration group that I lead to
illustrate the practice of a particular theoretical orientation. During the
second half of the class session, the class is divided into two groups
(generally not more than 12 students in each small group) with an experiential
focus. The students co-lead this group for the first 45 minutes of the session,
which is followed by 30 minutes of processing time with a supervisor. Another
faculty member assists me in supervising these small groups.
A
Weekend Training and Supervision Group
In addition to the regular class meetings
each week of the Practicum in Group
Leadership course, and the one time each week that they meet for group
supervision with another supervisor, students are asked to enroll in a 3-day
training and supervision workshop during the first weekend of the semester.
This is a separate course (Group Process and Membership) in which students are
given one semester unit of credit. The course does not carry a letter grade but
is evaluated simply as “Credit” or “No Credit,” removing the evaluative
component from this kind of experiential group training. This residential
workshop includes about 25 hours of group work with many opportunities for
students to function as group members and as co-leaders of their own small
groups during the weekend.
In
addition to my role in this weekend workshop, five other faculty members also
function as supervisors during this workshop. Before students enroll in this
workshop, they are informed of the nature, purpose, and structure of the class.
They indeed do get involved in self-exploration and in dealing with
interpersonal issues that grow out of the emergence of the group process.
Students each have at least two opportunities to co-lead a group during the weekend,
and each of these sessions is directly supervised. Students co-lead for the
first hour and spend the next 30 minutes discussing group process with the
supervisor of that particular session.
Preparing
Students to Co-Lead Small Groups. When students and supervisors initially meet for the weekend
workshop, an orientation meeting is held for the entire group. We offer
suggestions aimed at helping students get the maximum benefit from their
experience, both as members and as facilitators of their small groups. We urge
students not to be overly concerned about making mistakes and encourage
participants to share what they are thinking, feeling, perceiving, and
experiencing in the here-and-now of the group session. We emphasize that there
is no such thing as a “bad group,” because everything that occurs in this kind
of workshop is an opportunity for learning. We also allow some time for
participants to express and explore their concerns, as well as ask us questions
about the workshop. Students often mention a fear of getting stuck and not
knowing what to do; concern about being left unfinished; the difficulty they
expect to face in switching from member to leader; wondering how far to go with
personal issues; and their anxieties about the responsibility of co-leading a
group. During this time we do our best to create a safe climate where
participants will feel free enough to practice leading and where they will feel
trusting enough to share themselves in personal way so that they can become a
working group.
The Small-Group
Sessions. During the
first small-group session, our main goal is to assist participants in
continuing to talk about any fears or expectations they have pertaining to the
workshop. We encourage them to identify themselves to one another, which is
partly done by defining their personal goals. Through getting acquainted in
their small group, participants begin to actively create a trusting environment
where they can engage in the self-disclosure necessary for a working group.
Another agenda we have for this session is to help the group come up with
themes they can use as a focus for their sessions.
Prior
to attending the workshop, students are expected to read Group Techniques (Corey, Corey, Callanan, & Russell, 2004) as a
way to familiarize them with ways of using and evaluating techniques in
facilitating groups. Also, before
students attend the workshop, they are told that each of the 90-minute sessions
will be structured around themes taken from the book I Never Knew I Had a Choice (G. Corey & Corey, 2014), which
they have read prior to this workshop.
Participants are asked to read this book prior to attending the
workshop, but they are not expected to stick rigidly to these themes in a given
session; rather, these themes are points of departure and topics for focus.
Generally, it is hoped that the student leaders learn that their own personal
fears, problems, and unresolved issues will affect the way they lead groups.
Other here-and-now issues surface and are dealt with, especially matters such
as students’ anxiety about not knowing enough to lead groups effectively, fears
of being seen as incompetent, discomfort with intense emotions, fears of making
mistakes, and concerns about being able to work well with a co-leader.
At this preliminary
meeting, students are given guidelines regarding how they can actively
participate in their small groups. There are at least two levels on which they
can use their time in small groups effectively. On the first level, there is
the focus on the here-and-now, which pertains to students’ reactions to what is
going on in their training group. Students are told that they will be asked to
reflect on what they are thinking and feeling in the here-and-now as it
pertains to being in their small group and will have the opportunity to express
their fears, concerns, and hopes related to participation in the group.
On the second
level, there is the focus on students’ personal goals, or the personal topics
they are willing to explore during the workshop. Students hear about the
importance of establishing specific and meaningful personal goals. They are asked to pay special attention to
personal topics that have relevance to how an issue is likely to impact their
work as counselors or group leaders. The
topics in I Never Knew I Had a Choice
(Corey, G. & Corey, 2014) are especially important as material for
exploration in the small groups. Some of
these topics include the following:
·
Where are you in your journey
toward personal growth?
·
What were some significant
turning points in your childhood?
·
What were some significant
turning points in your adolescence?
·
How does your past influence
the person you are presently?
·
Do you have struggles in the
area of autonomy?
·
How is wellness a concern of
yours?
·
Do you have concerns over your
bodily identity?
·
How well are you managing
stress in your life?
·
What concerns do you have in
the area of intimate relationships?
·
What are some relationships
that you would most like to change?
·
What changes would you most
like to make in your life?
·
Are themes of loneliness and
solitude important to you?
·
How are death and loss
potential concerns of yours?
·
What are your struggles
pertaining to meaning and values?
In small groups, we tend to focus on
exploring self-defeating cognitions these students bring to the workshop. For
instance, many students burden themselves with perfectionistic demands that
they should already know everything there is to know about a group before they
even take the class. Student trainees worry a great deal about their performance
and how the supervisors will judge them. Some students are convinced that the
supervisors will “discover them” and tell them they cannot continue in the
course. They fear being exposed as incompetent. All these concerns make
excellent material to work on in the sessions, for it is what is presently on
many of their minds. Some of the most useful themes pertain to their concerns
about doing well in this workshop and in the group course. We caution
participants to avoid discussing such themes in abstract and impersonal ways,
and we encourage the leaders to facilitate in a manner that will help members
apply these themes to themselves and explore them in personal ways.
During
the first hour of group working time, the supervisors take notes that we later
share with the students when we process the group. These details can serve as
excellent teaching points during the process commentary time that immediately
follows. Many aspects of what is going on in the group get our attention: How
do the co-leaders open the group? How do they introduce techniques? If there is
a theme, do the co-leaders facilitate group interaction and assist members to
deal with the theme in a personal way? Are co-leaders able to drop an agenda to
pick up on an emerging theme in the group, such as lack of trust? What
leadership skills are the co-leaders demonstrating? Are they able to
orchestrate member interaction, or do they focus on the first person who speaks
and ignore others? What are the results of certain interventions? Are the co-leaders
paying attention to nonverbal language? Are they able to move from one person
to another in a natural way? What are the co-leaders modeling? How is conflict
dealt with in the group? How are the co-leaders working together? Do they pick
up on each other’s interventions? What leadership skills do they need to
acquire or refine?
These
are a few examples of what the supervisors focus on during the first hour of
each session that the students are co-leading. We find that participants are
most receptive to learning about group process when they have just experienced
what we hope to teach.
The Process
Commentary Time. The second part of each
small-group session (approximately 30 minutes) begins with our request that the
co-leaders talk to each other about what they were thinking and feeling during
the past hour. We then ask the student group members to briefly summarize their
experience. Then, as supervisors, we share our observations in such a way that
participants are encouraged to interact with us through questions and
discussion. During the process commentary, we emphasize that many appropriate
clues can be picked up on and explored during a group session. What a leader
decides to focus on is not a matter of “right” or “wrong”; rather, it is often
a function of the leader’s interest at the moment. Leaders might make a certain
intervention (or avoid doing so) because of their theory, the lack of comfort
with certain emotions, their personal blocks, or the mood that seems present in
the group. We tend to focus on what the co-leaders had in mind with certain
interventions and sometimes talk about alternative ways of intervening.
During
this process commentary time, we might ask co-leaders open-ended questions
designed to help them reflect on their own experience as they were leading.
Some of these key questions include the following: What was going on with you
when . . . ? Were you aware of thinking or feeling something that you did not
say? What hunches did you have when . . . ? Where might you go if you were to
continue in the next session? Why did you introduce this particular technique
at this time? As we discuss the proceedings and provide feedback, we try to be
constructive, honest, and sensitive. We encourage students to build on their
strengths and try not to discourage them from trying out new ideas and
approaches.
Our
experience in doing training workshops has shown us that the participants learn
best when the material arises from what they actually experience in a session.
This kind of ongoing teaching/learning process seems to have an impact on
students: what they are conceptualizing has its roots in a problem they have
actually faced as either a member or a leader of their training group.
At
times we have to give difficult feedback, yet we say what needs to be said in a
respectful and sensitive way. We notice that after the first small group and
our process commentary, the participants relax greatly and feel much less
anxiety. They watch the way we give feedback and see that we treat them with dignity.
We respect their level of experience, whatever that may be, and give them room
to learn by trial and error. Also, we encourage students to be patient with
themselves and not to burden themselves with unrealistic expectations of having
to be perfect.
Leading by the
Supervisors- The other supervisors and I
typically co-lead the small groups during the evening session. During these
sessions, participants have no leadership responsibilities. This is their time
to bring up any issues that surfaced for them during the day and to go further
with them if they choose. Our leading provides a safeguard against members
opening up issues without having a means to explore them in greater depth. The
participants have an opportunity to work with any personal matters that are
unsettled, with anyone in the workshop whom they might have reactions to, or
with any of their concerns pertaining to their participation in their small
group (either as a member or a facilitator). We realize that going from one
session to another, being alternately a member of a group and a leader, working
on a feeling level and then a cognitive level, and being in a personal working
group and then shifting to a process-oriented discussion group can be
unsettling and often demands adjustment.
Our
leading during the evening is one way of attending to the feelings that arise
from the intense and demanding activities of a typical day in the workshop. It
also gives the participants a chance to observe and experience each
supervisor’s style of leadership. However, we caution students against merely
observing what we are doing and studying us. They are reminded that the best
way to learn how to lead a group is by getting fully involved as a member, and
then later conceptualizing and discussing what they experienced.
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