Understanding and Facilitating Group Work and Group Dynamics;

Do groups work?

I can completely appreciate group dynamics and how effective group work can actually be, on both the individual and the facilitators, an experience of illumination in a very unique and humanistic way.

Back in the day when I was new to group work and facilitating, the pressure that I felt was over-powering to say the least. Of course holding the knowledge that whether the group was a success or failure and that it was not just down to me did give me some confidence, ultimately it was down to the group and their dynamics.

No group is ever the same.

This knowledge helped me in sharing the responsibility but also help to raise my awareness of how difficult it could be to give sufficient time and focus to each and every member thus proving to be a bit of a personal battle.

With this experience and foresight I would like to suggest that no group be more than 11 to 12 members in size and does not carry over more than 6 to 8 weeks.

In my humble opinion (IMHO) this kind of group work offers bite size chunks which I feel is paramount to any therapeutic alliance.

Psychotherapy Perspectives: The Benefit of Groups and What is a …

Group therapy also is based on a screening process by facilitators to assure that members are well suited for this therapeutic process and ready for group work. Sometimes there is a theme that defines the nature of the group and other …

Shut Up and Listen: The Importance of Active Listening in Internal …

Staying in therapy and staying with therapy can be a difficult proposition for a dissociative group, even when there is no specific programmed response or therapeutic conflict getting in the way. Each person in the group has to work through their own individual issues with trust, connection, feeling dependent, being independent – and beyond that, there are the interpersonal dynamics that happen between members of a dissociative system, just like they would between …

Irvin Yalom Outpatient Group Psychotherapy Video

Let me know your thoughts and experiences…I am listening and I am interested.

Dawn Pugh Therapy expert.