The Interactive Group Experience

Before You Enter the Group
Initial call, Interview

The Entrance Stage
First meeting, Checking out the group, Interactive format, Beginning to participate, First interaction, Receiving positive feedback

The Inclusion Stage
Initiating interactive work, Awareness, A full interaction, Self-revealing and acceptance, Negative feelings and conflict, Asking for feedback, Group norms and culture, Power, Commitment

Suggestions and Procedures
Consultations, Outside issues, Weekend retreats, Interactions with the leader

The Mutuality Stage
Tending relationships in group, Relationships outside group, Reaching out, Clarifying relationships

The Growth Process
Growing Edge, How growth happens in group, How growth transfers to outside life

Your Responsibilities
Planning, Self-compassion, Trust, Courage, Involvement, Responsibility

The Intimacy Stage
Bringing a relationship into group, Contact work, Deeper work, Group as healthy family, Transference and healing

Termination
Deciding whether to leave, Dealing with people’s reactions, Finishing up, When others terminate

Conclusion
Spiritual development, Community

Introduction

Interactive Groups provide an exciting and powerful journey into psychological healing and personal growth. These are long-term groups which focus on growth through relationship, specifically through your relationships with the other group members. This is an intense and very effective learning environment, because instead of just talking about how you relate to others, you learn from your interactions with the other group members, right in the moment. At another level, an Interactive Group is a vehicle for an aspect of spiritual development, because it is an exercise in the creation and expression of love--acceptance, compassion, appreciation, and intimacy. Interactive Groups also have social relevance, because they provide that deep sense of bonding with a group, that sense of community which is often missing in our fragmented, alienated world.

This paper describes what it is like to be in an Interactive Group, from your first few weeks in the group to the stage when you are an old-timer with close relationships. It is intended for the following people:

(1) Prospective group members can get an understanding of the group experience so you can decide if you want to pursue it.

(2) For current group members, it is a guide to your experience at each stage in the group, so you will know what to look for, what questions to ask yourself, what you might be avoiding, and how to make best use of the group.

(3) For therapists who are using or being trained in this method, it gives a perspective on the development of a group and what members may be going through at each stage.

The Initial Call

The first step is to call the leader to get more information about what the groups are like and to find out which groups have openings. This initial call is an important statement to yourself that you are ready for more growth. However, it doesn’t commit you to joining a group. In fact, each additional step--the interview, the first month in the group--can be done as an experiment to see if the group is right for you. You can decide to discontinue at any time.

The Interview

If you want to carry the process further, the next step is a pre-group interview or interviews. During this time, you and the leader get to know each other better, the leader tells you more about how the group functions, and you share more about who you are and what you want to get from a group. If you decide you want to join a group, there is a discussion of which group might be best for you. The leader also helps to prepare you for group by discussing any fears or reservations you may have.

The Entrance Stage

I have divided this paper according to the stages of development of a group, which are also the stages each person goes through when they join an existing group. There are five stages: (1) Entrance, (2) Inclusion, (3) Mutuality, (4) Intimacy, (5) Termination. I will describe what a person’s experience might be who joins an existing group as he or she goes through each of the stages. These stages are not as rigid as they may appear from this description. Most group issues are operating throughout a person’s stay in group; certain issues are simply more likely to be prominent at certain stages. Each person’s path through a group is unique; you are not likely to go through the process exactly as I describe below.

The First Meeting

At the beginning of your first meeting the leader will invite you to introduce yourself to the group, and the group members may also introduce themselves to you. This means describing to the group why you are there and what you’d like to work on. If this is too uncomfortable for you to do right away, you can wait and come in later in the meeting when you feel more comfortable. I encourage you to get involved as quickly as you can, but it’s OK to spend most of your time observing during the first meeting. If you do, however, people will probably want to hear something from you before the night is out.

If you are afraid, it’s OK to observe more than participate at first and gradually get more involved as the weeks go by. You must realize, however, that you won’t really get a sense of how the group can work for you unless you become personally involved. It is a completely different experience to be involved in a personal interaction than it is to watch one.

Checking Out the Group

The Entrance Stage begins when you join the group and usually lasts 2 to 4 weeks. It can last only a few minutes or up to several months. During this stage you will probably check the group out to see if it is right for you. You may check out the leader to see if you feel he or she is competent and caring. You may check out the Interactive mode to see if this style of group can help you make the changes you want. You will also be checking out the group members to see if you want to get close to them. During this stage you will probably be observing for the most part and only occasionally making small forays out into the group. You may be tentative until you decide that the group is right for you and you begin taking the risk to do significant interactive work.

The Interactive Format

We make a clear distinction between "interactive work" and "outside issues." Interactive work doesn’t just mean people in group talking to each other. It means people talking to each other about their feelings toward each other or about their relationships. It can also mean one person talking to the group about his or her feelings in the group. "Outside issues" refers to sharing what is happening in your life, pain from your past, your psychological issues, or any other general discussion. The focus of the group is on interactive work. Outside issues need to be brought up occasionally, but they are secondary to the interactive work. However, during the Entrance and Inclusion Stages, outside issues play a more important part in the group because people are still getting to know each other and developing trust.

The assumption is that you will learn about how you function in your life by participating in the group. The group becomes a microcosm of your life, and since you are the same person, almost all the issues you have in your life will come out in group sooner or later. You can learn about them in a much more direct and accurate way through your own awareness in group and through feedback from others. You can also experiment with new behavior right in the moment during group. This is a much more effective growth situation than just talking about your problems.

This focus on interactive work means that there isn’t a lot of free floating discussion unless it is about what is happening in the group. Sometimes there are even silences in the group. During these, members think about what work they have to do, or perhaps get up their courage to begin some difficult work. The group usually doesn’t focus on one person exclusively for a long period of time, unless that person is dealing with their feelings about group. Even then, the work will probably expand to include other group members. The leader doesn’t structure the group much by setting up topics or doing exercises. The group members initiate the work they need to do. Once a piece of work is initiated, however, the leader is often active in facilitating the work.

The interactive process is foreign to most people. It is very different from normal social conversation, and it is different from support groups or therapy groups which focus on individual work. It is often difficult for people to understand until they have experienced it for a while. I hope this paper will help you to grasp the process more quickly.

Beginning to Participate

Your first participation might be to talk about what it feels like to be in the group. Most people feel a fair amount of anxiety at their first meeting. Some are also excited. It can be a relief to talk about whatever you are feeling.

For example, one person introduced himself as follows: "Hi, my name is Willie. I joined this group because I want to learn to be assertive without getting into so many fights with people. I also want to figure out what I’m doing wrong so that my love relationships don’t work out.... Boy am I nervous right now. This is hard talking to a group of strangers, especially about stuff like this."

You also can begin by giving feedback to other people who have worked. For example, after Jill finished interacting with another group member, you might say, "Jill, I really identified with your struggle to speak your mind instead of smoothing things over. That’s a big problem of mine. I appreciate the way you hung in there with what you believe instead of giving in."

Your First Interaction

At some point the leader will encourage you to begin doing some interactive work. You will be encouraged to pick someone in the group whom you have initial impressions of and reactions toward. Actually you probably have them toward everyone. After a fairly short period of being around anyone, we all have initial reactions to a person, so its just a matter of picking someone in the group to start with, probably someone that you feel safe talking to. The reactions can be positive or negative, big or little. Many people start out with positive reactions because they find these less threatening. This also helps to build initial trust and safety.

For example, you might say, "Mary, I really like the way you come across. You seem really honest, and not afraid to say exactly what you are feeling. And you say it in a way that doesn’t offend people." Then the leader might ask you to tell her how that makes you feel toward her. "I feel warmly toward you and I feel like I can trust you." Mary would then respond with her reaction to what you said. For example, "Thank you. That makes me feel really good. I’ve been working on that for a long time. It’s nice to be recognized. I like you, too."

Your first interaction might begin with someone in the group telling you their initial impressions of you. For example, someone might say, "It seems like you’re a nice person, but I’m not sure you would ever say anything negative even if you were feeling it. So far it seems like you’re mainly trying to please people." It would then be your turn to respond. You might feel embarrassed or hurt or angry in response to what she said. If so, it would be important to say that. Or you might just respond to the content of her perception of you, by saying whether you think you have been trying to please people in group. The dialogue between you would continue until it came to a conclusion which was satisfactory for both of you. In the Entrance Stage, these interactions are usually brief.

One of your first interactions might involve receiving positive feedback. For example, Betty says, "I really like what I’ve seen of you so far. You seem warm and caring and really perceptive, especially for someone so new to the group. I feel like you’ve been really understanding and supportive with me, you know, especially last week." You might take in her feedback, allowing it to make you feel good about yourself, and respond to Betty in a warm way. Or you might get embarrassed or deflect the compliment. In that case, the leader would encourage you to examine why it was hard for you to take it in. For example, you might not feel worthy, or you might feel afraid of the contact with Betty. You would then experiment with taking in Betty’s feelings, and then you would respond with your feelings toward her. A short dialogue might ensue.

Moving On

After a few hours or a few weeks or perhaps a few months, you may decide that the group seems right for you. You decide that you like the interactive format. The group feels relatively safe and you decide that you want to be there. You are ready to begin taking some greater interactive risks. When you do this, you will have moved ahead to the Inclusion Stage.

The Inclusion Stage

This stage deals with acceptance and power and commitment. It deals with the question of whether you are included in the group or not. You also learn how the group operates--the group norms and the group culture. You learn about how people function psychologically and you learn awareness and communication skills.

Initiating Interactive Work

There are two ways to initiate interactive work in group. One is to allow yourself to respond in the moment when you have a reaction to something which happens in group. When something happens which generates feelings in you, I encourage you to speak up, to let your feelings be known, so that you can benefit from processing them at the moment they happen. These will often be feelings toward another person in group, so an interaction often follows. If you find yourself reacting while a piece of work is going on, you may want to wait until it is finished before expressing your feelings. In some cases, you may feel so strongly that you want to express yourself at the moment even if you interrupt something. This is a choice you must make, based on your own feelings and your sensitivity to the work that is happening. If you do interrupt, other people may react to that. However you do it, it is valuable to express yourself as close to the moment as feasible.

The second way to initiate interactive work is to plan it before group. You can think through your feelings toward each person in group and notice where there are feelings toward someone which you haven’t expressed or feedback which you haven’t asked for. These don’t have to be strong feelings. They can be positive or negative feelings. You can bring up these feelings without waiting for something to trigger them in group. At the beginning of group, or when there is a pause, simply say that you have some work to do, and begin by telling the person your feelings. An interaction will follow.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you have no feelings toward some of the people in group. Even if you have been in group for just a week or two you are bound to have initial impressions of everyone, and probably some initial reactions toward everyone, even if those reactions are slight. Don’t ignore your initial reactions because they are not strong. Expressing even minor reactions is a good way to get more involved in group. By doing this, you interact with people, and therefore you get more involved, and your reactions become stronger.

At the other extreme, some people don’t want to express their initial reactions because they are too negative. "I don’t really know this person." "Who am I to tell him I think he’s arrogant?" "I’ll probably change my mind when I get to know him better." Remember that you’re not necessarily judging him, only telling him your reaction. Someone else might react differently. You have every right to say what your reaction is. He will probably be interested in your reaction because he can learn something about himself from it. He might even be interested in your reaction precisely because you don’t know him very well. He may want to learn about people’s initial reactions to him. It’s perfectly all right to change your mind later. One of the important reasons why people express their negative feelings is so they can work them through and feel better about each other.

You will sometimes need to initiate work in group which is difficult or scary. For example, you may have something critical to say, but feel guilty about it. You may have feelings to reveal that you feel ashamed of. You may have positive feelings to express, but be afraid of being rejected. In getting the courage to do this work, remember that it is just as important to talk about your difficult feelings as it is to do the work. You are not supposed to just grit your teeth and do it. You can also talk about the guilt or shame or fear while you are doing the work. In fact, I encourage you to talk about these feelings. It may make it easier for you to do the work, and it will certainly make the work more valuable for you, because you will have a chance to work on the feelings which make it hard to initiate.

Awareness

"Awareness" is the ability to notice and label what you are feeling and experiencing at the moment it is happening. In most instances, this is no easy accomplishment! Of course if you are experiencing a very strong emotion, you will be aware of it. However, most of the feelings that are important are much more subtle and hard to grasp. It is especially hard to be aware of your feelings when you are in the middle of an intense interaction with someone, yet this is the time when it is most needed. Awareness is a skill to be developed over time. Some people have it highly developed when they first join group, but most have to learn it gradually. There are many levels of awareness; the first feeling you notice in a situation is only the beginning. As you become more adept at awareness, you will begin to be aware of subtler and deeper aspects of your experience.

For example, suppose Sandy tells Mike that she thinks he talks from his head too much and is out of touch with his feelings. At first he thinks about whether this is true or not. He is focusing on the content of what she said, not his awareness of feelings. The leader suggests that he talk about his feeling response to Sandy. Then Mike becomes aware of feeling resentful or angry about what she said. At the leader’s suggestion he looks further and becomes aware that he also feels hurt by Sandy. As he explores deeper he discovers that he feels hurt because he likes Sandy and he wants her to like him, so he is especially vulnerable to hearing something negative from her. Even deeper, he might realize that he was criticized a lot during his childhood, so hearing any criticism now makes him feel bad about himself. Notice how many levels of awareness are possible.

If Mike tells Sandy that he is angry at her, he might get an angry response back and then the two of them would work on resolving the conflict. If he tells Sandy he is hurt because he wants her to like him, she might explain that she does like him, and that she was just telling him about one thing that gave her trouble. Mike would then have to decide if he believes her--if he thinks she really meant it when she said she liked him, or if he thinks she was just smoothing things over. If he tells Sandy he feels bad about himself because of old messages, she might be sympathetic and caring. No matter which feeling Mike expresses, he and Sandy will then engage in a dialogue to see if they can work things out between them.

In addition to working out his feelings with Sandy, Mike might also decide that he is interested in the issue of his being too intellectual. He asks Sandy to give him examples so he can understand what she means. He asks the other group members if they also think he is too much in his head and if they can give examples. If Mike decides that it’s true and he would like to change, he might ask Sandy or the group to let him know the next time it happens. Then he could practice expressing himself in a more feelingful way.

Self-Revealing and Acceptance

Notice that part of Mike’s interaction with Sandy dealt with learning about himself and part of it dealt with acceptance. Now that Sandy has told him something she doesn’t like, does it mean that she doesn’t accept him? Acceptance is the number one issue in the Inclusion Stage. You want to reveal yourself, but only if you are going to be accepted by the group. You want to tell the group about yourself, especially about your problems and your pain. You also want to be able to be yourself. You want to show your anger or your insecurity, your tears or your fears, your strength or your neediness. But it is critical that you be accepted as you are.

An important part of most people’s work in group is to share things about yourself that are important to you and which you have strong feelings about. Perhaps you need to talk about how you were abused as a child. Perhaps you are gay, or you are going through a painful divorce, or having anxiety attacks. Even though this is not officially "interactive work," it is very important work, especially in the beginning stages of group.

As you feel ready, you will probably take the risk to reveal more and more of yourself, especially parts of yourself which you feel ashamed of. These are the hardest things to reveal, because you expect to be judged and rejected. But they are also the most urgent because you really need to be accepted with these shameful parts. You will discover that when you reveal these parts of yourself in an open way, not only are you accepted by the group, but people actually appreciate you more, because of your courage and vulnerability.

This is one of the magic things that happens in an Interactive Group. There is actually something beautiful about a person when they are being very open and vulnerable, whether this is because they are showing some deep pain or insecurity or because they are being open and loving toward someone they feel close to. Everyone has a great need to show these vulnerable parts of themselves and be accepted, and in fact the group atmosphere makes if easy for this to happen. People want to be able to love each other if only they are in the right environment to bring this out. Most people in group find it natural to be loving and compassionate toward someone who reveals pain or weakness. The pain is experienced as something precious and beautiful, and most people in the group welcome this kind of sharing, especially from new group members. It makes them feel closer to the one sharing the pain. It’s one of those poignant, special moments in group that everyone cherishes.

If you have a secret that feels very embarrassing to reveal, it is OK to take as much time as you need to feel safe in the group before you decide to share it. It may be a good idea to discuss the issue with your leader in a consultation in preparation for revealing it in group. Remember that it will be a very valuable part of your experience in group to eventually reveal the issue.

Negative Feelings and Conflict

One of the big challenges for many people at this stage in the group is the expression of negative feelings. I use the term "negative feelings" to refer to feeling reactions of a problematic nature, where your response has an element of pain or dislike rather than a good, pleasurable feeling. I do not mean to imply that there is anything bad about having or expressing negative feelings. Both positive and negative feelings are the backbone of human relationships, and both are important. It is valuable in an Interactive Group to express all of your feelings, not just good feelings which won’t get you in trouble. It is important to say when something bothers you. It is valuable to be able to express annoyance, disagreement, hurt, or discomfort. It’s also important to express stronger feelings such as fear, anger, and jealousy, but these can be put off until the Mutuality Stage when you feel safer in group.

Some people find it hard to believe that expressing negative feelings of any kind will be helpful to anyone. "It will just hurt him unnecessarily, and it’s not a big deal anyway." "It’s probably just my own material anyway. I should just work it out myself." "It’s not something she can change. Why make her feel bad?" This is usually because you are afraid of hurting her and feeling guilty about it, or because you are afraid of her being angry or rejecting toward you.

In fact there are a number of reasons for expressing negative feelings. It gives you a chance to practice asserting yourself. Many people are afraid to bring up difficult things, and this is an ideal way to learn how to do it. It also gives you a chance to learn how to work through any hard feelings that come up by doing this. In addition, it gives the other person some useful feedback about how they affect others. When you react to someone, it’s usually not all their fault, and it’s usually not all your fault either. In fact it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, but it’s usually a combination of something real about the other person and some issue of yours. So both of you have something to learn from the interaction.

For example, Carole says, "Jan, when you had that interaction with Max last week, I didn’t like the way you treated him. I felt you were being defensive and controlling. You didn’t really give him a chance to explain himself before you attacked him." The leader asks Carole if she was feeling protective of Max. "Maybe a little, but I was more just scared for myself. I wouldn’t want Jan to do that to me." Jan responds, "I don’t see what was wrong with what I did. I was just standing up for myself." The leader explores with Jan how she is reacting to Carole, and she discovers that she is feeling defensive. She even realizes that she is responding to Carole the same way she did to Max. This helps Jan to recognize a pattern of hers which involves defensiveness, and she decides she’d like to change it.

In the midst of this, the leader asks how Carole is reacting emotionally to Jan. She discovers that she is feeling frightened of Jan’s anger. They check this out with Jan and find out that she is feeling a little angry at Carole, but she also appreciates Carole’s taking the chance to confront her because it gave her an opportunity to learn something about herself. This gives Carole a chance to begin dealing with her fear of other people’s anger. Here she finds that she can tolerate Jan being a little angry at her.

Many confrontational interactions are resolved this easily. However, sometimes two people get quite angry at each other and don’t find it so easy to own their part in the problem or to see the other person’s side. However, usually after a half hour or an hour of intense focused work on the conflict, they come to a better place with each other. Sometimes additional work has to be done over the next few weeks to completely work things out. One of the most gratifying things about Interactive Groups is to see two people who were at each other’s throats only a month before, who have now worked things out so well that they are actually feeling much closer to each other than before. By living through an interaction such as this, many people learn for the first time that it is really possible to have a close relationship which includes conflict and anger, and that talking about these things can bring people closer to each other.

Asking for Feedback

Like many people, you may join an Interactive Group partly to learn more about how other people react to you and to learn what you may be doing to keep your relationships from working out the way you would like. You will get plenty of information of this kind through the ordinary working of the group, as people express their feelings toward you. However, if you want to make sure you get it, and make sure it’s relevant to your concerns, you can ask for it explicitly.

If you have been in the group for a month or two, you might want to know how people are reacting to you in general, so you can just ask the group as a whole for feedback. This is pretty frightening, but it can be very valuable; it can generate a host of useful information. You are not only hearing from many people, but they are also responding to each other, so one person may help clarify what another says. Or if one person’s reaction to you is mostly based on their own distorted perception of you, this will become obvious when you hear from others. The dangerous thing about this kind of feedback is that you might feel hurt if too many people say the same thing. Therefore, it is important to make sure you feel strong enough to handle this, and it is also important to let the group know if you get hurt or start to feel bad while the feedback is happening. Of course, more likely than not, you will be surprised at how positive the feedback is. This can be almost as hard to endure as criticism, in a wonderful way.

You can also ask for feedback about something specific that you are concerned about. For example, Lilly said to the group, "I’m concerned that I may be pushing away people whom I’d like to be close to without even realizing I’m doing it. I end up alone so much when I really want people around, and I never knew why. Recently someone suggested that I was unconsciously pushing people away. I’d like to know if any of you think I’ve been doing that." In response a man said that she discounted the good things he said to her. A woman said that Lilly acted sour and complaining even when they had nice contact. The group helped Lilly to sort out what she was doing and how she might want to change.

Group Norms and Culture

During the Inclusion Stage you get a clear sense of how an interactive group functions, and in addition you learn the norms and culture for your group. Every group has a set of norms by which it operates and a group culture. These define for everyone what is allowed and what is not allowed in group. They also define what is preferred and what is considered unsafe. Some norms are explicit, but many are not stated out front, and in fact, many are not even conscious to the group members.

You will probably feel a strong compulsion to follow the group norms because of a need for acceptance and the fear of being rejected. In most cases this isn’t bad because most of the norms will be good ones which encourage the group to function in a helpful manner. But some of the norms may not be helpful, and you may find one or two to be stifling to you. For example, you may feel that it is not OK to express anger or jealousy, or to talk about sexual attractions, or to interrupt two people who are interacting. It is important for you to challenge any norms which you feel are holding you back, either by bringing up the issue or by simply breaking the norm and finding out how people feel.

For example, you could say that you think there is an unwritten rule about not expressing anger, or you could actually express anger to someone. In either case, you then need to make sure to get feedback from the group. Sometimes it will turn out that there was an unnecessary group restriction, and you will have done the group a favor by bringing it out and changing it. Other times it may turn out that you imagined a norm which wasn’t there. You imagined there would be a negative response to breaking the norm, but in fact, people appreciated what you did. Either way you will have learned something important and taken a further risk in group.

Power

This brings up the issue of power in group--the question of who controls or influences what happens in group. How are group norms set? How is it decided what work gets done, who gets the groups attention? How much of this is done by the leader, how much by the group members? Which members have the most power? How equally is it shared?

During the Inclusion Stage it is important that you begin to take your share of the power in the group. You may do this by beginning to think for yourself about how things should best be done. You may occasionally challenge the leader or more experienced group members about the best course of action. You may break group norms which don’t fit for you. You may confront someone in group because you feel they take up too much time. In general, you begin to assert yourself to make the group a place which will be best for your needs. It is hard to really commit yourself to a group unless you feel that you have a say in how that group operates.

In general, I think a group operates best if the power is shared between the leader and the members. The leader must take the power to set certain norms that he or she thinks are best for the operation of the group, and he or she must make sure to keep the group a safe place. However, beyond this there are many other areas in which questions arise about how the group should function.

For example: Under what circumstances is it OK to interrupt when two people are interacting? How much outside material should be brought into group? How much should group members facilitate each other? When it is OK for someone in an interaction to say they don’t want to deal with it anymore? Should the group include any structured exercises, and if so, how often? Are there times when new members should not be brought in? How should the group deal with new members?

For many of these issues, the group needs to develop its own norms in discussion and negotiation between the members and the leader. If you want something done differently than the leader is doing it, you need to take the risk to tell him or her.

I also believe that ideally power should be equally distributed among the members. This is harder to accomplish, since each person brings their own power issues to the group. Some people have a difficult time asserting themselves and taking their share of the power. They need to practice asking for what they want. Others have a strong need to control what happens and have a difficult time sharing power with others. They need explore what is behind their need for control and experiment with letting go. These differences are all grist for the mill for interactive work in group. Sometimes people get into a power struggle. This is a chance to work on the difficult process of learning to share power--being simultaneously true to your own needs and sensitive to the needs of others. The leader will try to help each person grow in terms of their ability to assert and share power.

Commitment

It is a big emotional step to commit yourself to an Interactive Group. You’re not just committing yourself to come each week and work on yourself in this environment. You’re also committing yourself to be involved emotionally with the people in the group--to care about them and to let them care about you and be important to you. In fact, if you have no emotional room in your life to get close to people, an Interactive Group will not work very well for you. You may get something out of it for six months or so, but then you must be willing to get involved emotionally or not much more will happen.

The commitment issue usually comes up during the Inclusion Stage. People ask themselves questions such as: Do I really want to get involved with these people? Are they good enough for me? Am I good enough for them? Will they accept me? If I commit, will I have to give myself up? Can I really be myself and still be close to these people?

These are the kind of questions which also come up for people in love relationships. People who have commitment problems in love relationships often have commitment problems with group at this stage. So this can be an excellent opportunity to work through your commitment problems in your life by working on them as they come up with respect to the group. If you find yourself struggling with this issue, don’t try to do it alone. Bring it up in group so that you can have help working it through. You may be afraid to do this for fear of hurting the people in group, but it is worth the risk because you have so much to gain.

Moving On

At some point when you have been in the group between three months and a year, you feel ready to really commit yourself to the group. You have probably revealed most of who you are--especially parts of yourself which you may be ashamed of--and discovered that you are really accepted by the group as you are. You probably have confronted people and have been confronted by people, and you’ve worked through these confrontations to strengthen your relationships with these people. You have probably asserted some power in the group to make it operate in ways which you need.

All this combines to make you feel safe in the group to be yourself, and to make you feel that the group is really yours. You are entering the Mutuality Stage.

Consultations

Each group member consults with the leader individually on a regular basis to help you get the most out of the group. For most people, a half hour once a month works well. Some people do better with an hour. Some can get by with a half hour every other month. The consultations have a number of purposes:

(1) To help you learn how to initiate interactive work in the group. Most people, when they first join an Interactive Group, have a hard time knowing how to initiate their own interactive work in the group. In a consultation, the leader can help you get in touch with your reactions to various people in the group, and explain how to translate these into interactive work.

(2) Even after you are familiar with group, there are often subtle but important reactions you have in group which you may not bring up--perhaps because you didn’t think to or because you were afraid or because you didn’t thing it was appropriate. By discussing these with the leader you can sort this out and know what to do.

(3) Sometimes feelings come up in group which need to be processed but you don’t feel safe to do this in group. You can talk about them with the leader first in a consultation and work it through enough so that you are ready to deal with them in group.

(4) Sometimes you have a specific issue you want to work on, but you don’t know how to do this in an interactive way. In a consultation you and the leader can strategize about the best way to make this work happen in group.

For example, suppose you want to work on your ability to deal with other people’s anger, but nobody is getting angry at you in group. You might explore with the leader how you act in such a way as to discourage anyone from being angry, and what you might do to change that. This would then pave the way for that work to happen.

Outside Issues

Even though the focus of the group is on interactive work and not on outside issues, sometimes it is valuable to bring up an outside issue, both for the person bringing it up and for the group. This is important to realize, because some people, when they understand the group emphasis on interaction, feel that they have no right to ever bring up outside work. This is not true. It is valuable to bring up outside issues so that the people in the group can know each other more intimately. In one sense, group members get to know each other in a very intimate way by doing interactive work. But important as this is, it is not enough. People also need to know about each other’s life concerns, about their significant outside relationships, and about their pains and joys in life.

The rule of thumb I encourage people to use in deciding whether or not to bring up an outside issue is as follows: (1) On any given night, if you are feeling strong emotions about an issue, then bring it up. (2) If you are so distracted by something that it prevents you from being present in group, then certainly bring it up. (3) It is also good to bring up an issue if it involves something important that you want the group to know about you, a significant personal sharing. (4) If you need support or help from the group with an issue, and asking for help or receiving help is difficult for you, then bringing up an outside issue is actually interactive work for you.

When a group member brings up an outside issue, the leader usually doesn’t focus on helping them with the content of the issue, instead he or she focuses on what is happening interactively between the person and the rest of the group.

For example, Jean began to share with the group some difficulties she was having with her husband. However, she was doing it in a way that was scattered and not very expressive of her feelings. The leader pointed this out and asked her to pick a person in the group whom she felt safe with. She picked Sharon, and was encouraged to share her marital problems with Sharon. The leader asked her to be aware of what she was feeling as she talked and to let her feelings show. As she did this, Sharon told her that she felt much closer to her.

Weekend Retreats

Each group periodically goes away together for a weekend retreat. These weekends are very powerful, in the depth of the work people are able to do, in the openness and vulnerability people achieve, and especially in the bonding which happens among the group members.

The extra contact between group members is very important to encouraging bonding at a deep level. Driving out in car pools, cooking and eating meals together, sleeping in the same house, playing together, hanging out, taking walks--all these add to the sense of being a caring family. And this sense of healthy family, of being with a group of people who really know you and care for you, is incredibly valuable for the level of work which people can do in group and the depth of healing which happens.

The intensity of the weekend experience also contributes to bonding, but more important, it leads to more potent work which goes deeper into the psyche and therefore is more healing. The commitment of going away for the weekend and devoting all that time to personal growth adds to the intensity. By working frequently during the weekend, you have time to open up gradually throughout the weekend and to open at deeper and deeper levels as you go. You don’t have to leave group after two hours and go back to your ordinary life, which may require you to close down again. People are stimulated to get in touch with deeper material by watching others work, and often on a weekend, one person triggers another who triggers still another, as the depth and intensity build throughout the time together. The weekends seem like an amazing, magical time because so many wonderful things happen. People often come away with a sense of having had an almost spiritual experience.

After the weekend, the bonding which happened now feeds back into the ongoing group. People trust each other to continue working at deeper levels. The intensity, of course, can’t continue, but the group connection does, and it changes the whole complexion of the group. Because of the potency of the weekends, I see them as an integral part of the whole group experience, almost as important as the weekly meetings.

Interacting with the Leader

Even though the leader is not a regular participant in the group, you may from time to time have feelings and reactions to him or her. These are just as appropriate as any other feelings for initiating interactive work. It is especially important to bring up any negative feelings such as anger or hurt or fear which might make it difficult for you to trust the leader. In order to get the most out of the group it is crucial that you trust the leader and feel that he or she cares about you and is on your side. If any negative feelings come up which threaten this rapport, it is critical that you bring them up with the leader so the two of you can work it out.

Even if strong negative feelings such as this don’t arise, it can still be very valuable to interact with the leader. Since the leader is the authority in the group, people’s issues with authority figures tend to come up with the leader (though they often come up with other group members, too). You may feel a need for approval from the leader, or a desire to rebel, or a tendency to defend the leader, or some other feeling which is connected with authority for you. Bringing this up gives you a chance to work this through with the leader and therefore grow in this area.

You are also likely to have feelings toward the leader which derive from your childhood relationships with your parents. This is called transference. This can be very valuable because it gives you a chance to work through these feelings and establish a new relationship now which is healthier for you than the original. This is an important source of healing and deep personality change, just as it is in individual therapy. Transference relationships can also happen with other group members.

Mutuality Stage

In this stage, the preliminaries are over and you move fully into the major work of the group. Not that you haven’t been doing significant work already, but now you probably feel safe enough to let out all the stops. So your work deepens.

Tending Your Relationships in Group

In thinking about initiating interactive work in group, think in terms of your relationships with each of the group members. By this stage of the group, you have a relationship with each member of the group. Some of these relationships may be poorly developed, some may be warm and close, some may be conflictual, some may be distant, some may be underground, but you have a relationship of some sort with each person. Think through each relationship during the week or on your way to group. See if there is anything that needs to be clarified, or if there are any feelings not expressed or not fully worked through. See if there is anything bothering you about the person, or if there is anything keeping you distant. See if you want to get to know the person better or get closer to them. Any of these things are good reason to initiate work with the person. Think of your work in group as that of tending and exploring each relationship--working through problems, expressing good feelings, clarifying what is happening between you, and deepening your connection.

Relationships Outside Group

Unlike some therapy groups, there are no rules against having contact with other group members outside of group. In fact, I think that it enhances the value of the group if people develop relationships with each other outside of the group. In the later stages of the group, it adds depth and intensity to people’s relationships, which provokes work which goes deeper into the psyche and is therefore more potent for healing and change. It also brings the group experience closer to "real life" and helps people to transfer learnings from group to their regular lives.

Usually during the Mutuality Stage, some people begin to reach out to each other to make contact outside group--calling to ask for or offer help and support, getting together for lunch, etc. At this stage, it is not necessary to develop relationships outside group. If you have a busy life with no room for additional relationships, this shouldn’t be a problem. It is important to deepen your relationships with the other group members, but this can be done within the group time.

If you do develop a relationship outside group with one or more group members, it is very important that you bring the relationship back into group. Some people want to deal only with the things that happen in group and to ignore anything that happens outside with another group member. This is not desirable or really even possible. You can’t compartmentalize a relationship like that. Your feelings toward the person will be colored by everything that passes between you, and if you are to be open and honest with each other, you can’t arbitrarily leave out part of your relationship.

If you try to do this, usually something happens outside of group which needs to be worked on, and the people avoid talking about it in group. Their relationship in group becomes strained, and they have trouble doing any other work in group because of that strain. The only solution is to deal with the avoided issue. This is the reason why some group therapists don’t allow outside contact between group members. But there is no need to rule it out if it is handled properly. This means not colluding to avoid any issues between you. This same guideline applies to people who had a relationship prior to joining group. Nothing should be regarded as verboten in group.

Furthermore, if you become friends with someone outside of group, it is important to make an effort to do interactive work in group with that person even if you are not having problems in your relationship. Often it happens that two people will develop an outside friendship which is warm and comfortable and relatively problem free, and then they will stop interacting with each other in group, except perhaps to give support occasionally. They will no longer challenge each other in group or work on deepening their connection. When this happens, the group relationship becomes stale and both people lose a powerful opportunity for growth. If you realize that this has happened, take the risk to do interactive work with your friend in group.

Reaching Out

Sometimes people get the impression that interactive work must always involve an "issue" which you have with someone. This is not true. An important kind of interactive work involves reaching out to someone in group that you would like to be closer to. You don’t need to have any issue with the person other than that.

The reaching out might involve telling the person that you would like to call them or see them outside of group. This is often important work because many people have fears about reaching out in this way, and some people have difficulties in knowing how to handle such an invitation. Some people in their fear decide to extend the invitation before or after group so they don’t have to do it in front of an audience. This is understandable, but not a good idea. It is best to extend the invitation in group, so that it becomes interactive work, and you can get help with it.

Reaching out to a person need not be related to outside contact. For example, Walt says, "Stan, I want to tell you that I really like the way you handle yourself in group. I think you’re OK, and I would like to get closer to you." Stan replies, "Well, that’s a relief, I feel the same way about you, but I have been feeling insecure around you. I certainly couldn’t tell that you felt that way toward me at all. In fact, I was afraid that you weren’t especially interested in me." Walt: "That’s incredible. What made you think that?" Stan: "Well, it seems like you don’t make eye contact with me or smile at me much." Walt: "Really? It seems to me that I’ve tried, but you haven’t been receptive." Stan: "Well, that might be true, I suppose. I know I have a tendency to expect the worst and to protect myself from getting hurt. Maybe I’ve been doing that with you." The leader then suggests to Stan that he tell Walt what he likes about him. This gives Stan an opportunity to take the risk of reaching out to Walt, and it provides another way for the two of them to get closer.

Clarifying Relationships

As your time in group lengthens, your relationships with everyone in group become more complex, even if they do not extend outside the group. Many interactions involve clarifying and understanding those relationships.

For example, Elaine begins by telling Meg that she feels uneasy with her because they are so different and it is hard to understand her. At first Meg gets angry because she feels that Elaine is putting her down. Elaine clarifies by explaining that she doesn’t feel judgmental toward Meg, just confused by her. Then Elaine realizes that she is constantly afraid of Meg getting angry at her, as has just happened. This is more important than their being so different. Meg lets go of her anger and explains that she has always felt intimidated by Elaine because of how outspoken and articulate Elaine is and how inadequate Meg feels in that area. Elaine realizes that she has sensed this from Meg and it makes her annoyed and uneasy. They seem at an impasse.

Then Elaine explains that these feelings really go back to her relationship with her mother, who also felt competitive and inadequate around Elaine. Meg then acknowledges that her competitive/inadequate feelings also have more to do with her childhood than they do with Elaine. The work ends there. There isn’t a full resolution yet, which would allow Meg and Elaine to get closer to each other. But they have clarified a lot of the dynamics between them, and both of them have taken responsibility for their parts in the difficulties. They end the interaction without any bad feelings, and with a sense of optimism about what they can do in the future. They have both learned some important things about themselves.

Moving On

As your relationships with the other members deepen, some of them may become genuinely important to you as friends in your life, not just as companions in therapy. This means that you are moving on to the Intimacy Stage. This usually happens when you have been in the group anywhere from 9 months to two years. When you have been in the group long enough and have progressed to the point where you are ready for it, this intimacy must develop or your work will go dead. If your relationships in the group do not deepen when you are ready, you get bored. You don’t feel that you’re getting anything from group anymore. At this point you must deepen your relationships or leave.

Growing Edge

You can think about your work in group in terms of the question: What is my growing edge (or edges)? In other words what are the areas where I need to grow and where I am now ready to take the step. We all function within a certain circumscribed area of behavior and feeling which is safe and comfortable for us. Your growing edge is that part of the boundary which you are ready to push back, the place where you are ready to take a risk to try new ways of being.

For example, if you usually fight to defend yourself in ways which keep people from being close to you, your growing edge might be to allow yourself to be vulnerable. If you usually are self-effacing, your growing edge might be to speak up with your opinions and feelings. If you usually take care of people instead of expressing your needs, your growing edge might be to ask for support. If you usually control yourself and your environment so that you avoid feeling uncertain, your growing edge might be to initiate work without a plan about where it is going and allow yourself to be spontaneous in the moment.

There are hundreds of possible growing edges. At any one time you might be working on just one, or perhaps two or three. It is important to realize that the point is not to do away with the old behavior and replace it with the new.

In the first example above, if your usual behavior is to fight to defend yourself, you don’t want to lose your ability to do this. You simply want to expand your repertoire to include the new behavior of being vulnerable. There are some situations, such as a competitive encounter at work, perhaps, where it might be appropriate to fight to defend yourself, and you wouldn’t want to lose that ability. But there are other situations, such as being with your spouse or lover, where you would like to be able to be open and vulnerable. The goal is to be able to act in the way which is most appropriate for the situation you are in and what you want from it.

You will get feedback from the leader and from the other group members which will help you to understand what your growing edges are. However, ultimately you are the one who decides. You are the only one who can decide which behaviors and feelings you would like to change or expand, which new behaviors and feelings you want, and which issues you are ready to take on at a given time. It is valuable to think this through and to discuss it with the group, so that everyone can know what growing edges you are working on and can help you with them.

How Growth Happens in Group

Let’s look at the question of how therapeutic change and growth happens in an Interactive Group. You can divide the process into four steps:

Old Behavior. You begin by being yourself in the group. Whatever issues you have in your life will come out in group. In fact, it is helpful if all your patterns of relating come out in group, especially the ones which you would like to change. Some people think they should try to hide or suppress behavior which they don’t like, such as excessive anger or judgment or jealousy. But this is not helpful. It is better to bring all of yourself to group and let it all show. Then you can get help and go through the change process. If you succeed in hiding a part of yourself from the group, you might not get a chance to work through that issue.

Awareness. Next you become aware of what you are doing and its impact on others. This can happen because of the feedback you get from the group and the leader or simply through your own efforts. You also become aware of your feelings and your experience, especially the subtle feelings which are motivating you to engage in the old behavior. The aim at this step is not to suppress the old behavior, but rather to learn about it and the feelings behind it.

For example, Tina has a hard time speaking up in group and taking time for herself. She discovers that this is because she doesn’t feel worthy of the group’s attention and is afraid that people will find her boring. This is because her parents didn’t show much interest in her as a child. Eileen has trouble asserting herself. She discovers that it is because she is afraid of being rejected if she doesn’t please people. This is because her parents rejected her whenever she tried to assert herself.

New Behavior. Once you are aware of your behavior patterns and what drives them, you can experiment with new behavior. Sometimes the new behavior will be obvious, and you just need the group’s support to try it. Sometimes, you may need help from the leader or the group in deciding what new behavior to try.

For example, Eileen was getting lost and confused in an interaction with Jim, but had no idea why. The leader helped her to get in touch with the fact that she really disagreed with him, but was afraid to say so. The leader suggested that she say to Jim, "I disagree with you." She was afraid to do this, but finally tried it. They went on with the interaction, and Eileen discovered that Jim was not angry at her, and in fact they were able to clarify some things because she had been straightforward with him.

Feedback. Once you try out new behavior, it is very important to get feedback from others. After all, you were probably afraid to try the new behavior because of what happened long ago when you tried it, so it is very important to find out what happens now. Since you are trying out new behavior which is healthier and more functional, you will usually get very positive responses from the group. If you’re being more open, people will respond with warmth. If you’re being more assertive, people will appreciate your strength. This positive feedback helps to reinforce and solidify your new behavior.

If you’re not sure how people are responding, it is important to ask for feedback explicitly. You can ask for feedback from the person you are interacting with or from the whole group.

For instance, it is important for Eileen to find out if Jim is angry at her for disagreeing with him. And when Tina manages to speak up in group, it is important for her to find out if the group values her contribution.

Now you might ask: What happens if they get the wrong feedback? What if Jim is angry? What if the group is bored with Tina? In fact, this rarely happens. Usually the person’s fears are irrational, and when they try the new behavior, they are well received. People don’t usually get angry if you disagree with them. Tina is probably not boring. In addition, the group is a special place where people are more aware and more sensitive to each other than in ordinary situations. There is also a lot of caring and connection between group members, so they are not as likely to respond to each other negatively.

Even if the feared response happens, it can be a valuable learning situation. For example, if Jim does respond angrily when Eileen disagrees with him, they will work on it. She will have a chance to find out that she can stand up for herself and not collapse under someone’s anger. She’ll also have a chance to find out what it is in Jim that causes him to react this way, so she can see that it’s not her fault. If some group members are bored with Tina, she might find out that it is because she speaks in a quiet monotone and avoids her feelings. She can then experiment with a more expressive style.

However, this is unusual. Even though people are quite honest in group, they rarely respond in ways which are not therapeutic for each other. Almost invariably, when someone tries out new healthy behavior, it is reinforced by the group’s response. When an Interactive Group is functioning well, it is a place of love--acceptance, caring, and appreciation. This shows up in how people respond to each other, not because people hide their true responses, but because the closeness and connection just naturally lead to responses that are loving and encourage growth.

How Growth Transfers to Outside Life

There are three ways that learning and growth from the group transfer to your outside life.

Communication Skills. In the group you learn various communication and awareness skills. You learn how to confront people directly without judgment. You learn how to be open and vulnerable. You learn how to be aware of and express your emotional reactions. These skills can be valuable in any of your outside relationships--friends, family, spouse, work relationships, acquaintances, and strangers. However, they are most useful with people you are close to, because this level of communication often requires some time and effort and willingness to work through conflict. In addition, some of these skills are only appropriate with people whom you can trust to be caring if you are vulnerable.

So you must choose whom to use these skills with. For example, you must decide if Sally can handle confrontation. You must decide if there is enough caring between you and George that you will both hang in to work through difficulties. You must decide if Walt will be compassionate and understanding if you express your hurt and make yourself vulnerable. This is tricky. It is easy to dismiss people too quickly as incapable of communicating. Group members are sometimes surprised at how much can be accomplished once they learn how to communicate well. On the other hand, there are some people who will not respond well no matter what you do. You may also have some relationships which have such a history of problems that it will take more than just communication skills to improve them.

Awareness and Choice. Many of our interpersonal issues go beyond just communication skills. They require that we change some of our deeper interpersonal patterns--our growing edges. In group you learn to become aware of these patterns, not only in the abstract, but also in the moment. For instance, suppose you have a pattern of saying "Yes" to everyone who asks for help, no matter what the cost to yourself. You will not only learn that this is a pattern of yours; you will also learn to become aware of it at the moment it happens. You will learn to notice when you are about to give in to a request when if wouldn’t be good for you.

Once you have learned to do this in group, you can start noticing it outside as well. Then you can choose to act differently. Even though you may still have the urge to say "Yes," you can say instead, "Let me think about that. I’ll get back to you." Then if it is something that really isn’t good for you, you can tell the person "No." You can use awareness and choice to change your behavior.

Deeper Change. The major learning in an Interactive Group goes even deeper than this. Through becoming aware and trying new behavior in group and getting positive responses, you grow. As this happens repeatedly, you change at a deep level. Your natural responses begin to be healthy. For example, suppose you are afraid of being close to people because you fear you will lose yourself in trying to please them. In group, you will have many opportunities to practice being assertive rather than pleasing. You will also have many opportunities to practice opening yourself to being close to people, and then working on not losing yourself. Eventually, you will know at a deep level that you can hold your own. You will know that you can be close without giving yourself up. Closeness won’t feel so frightening. You will find yourself just naturally opening to closeness rather than closing down or running away.

When this happens, awareness and choice are no longer so necessary. Your natural responses have changed. You naturally respond in ways that bring you the closeness you want. You may occasionally need to consciously choose new behavior, but only in difficult situations.

Planning

It is your responsibility as a member of an Interactive Group to stay on top of the following four items of planning. This will help you to get the most out of the group.

Group Goals. Keep in mind why you are in group and what you want to get from group, especially what ways you want to grow and change interpersonally in your life. How do you want to improve the way you relate to others or feel about yourself or behave in the world?

Growing Edges. Understand what issues you are currently working on in group. What areas in yourself are you ready to change and are (or should be) focusing on in your group work? For example, you might be working on being more involved with the people in the group, or being more assertive, or more vulnerable.

Strategy. How do you plan to work on your growing edges? For example, if you are working on vulnerability, you might put an emphasis on sharing painful things from your life in an open way. Or alternatively, you might decide to stop defending yourself with anger when you feel hurt by someone and instead allow the hurt to be there.

Work. What particular work do you have to do with which people in group (or with the group as a whole)?

A. This may be work you need to do because of the strategy you decided on. For example, if you have decided to allow your hurt to show, you might bring up a recent situation when someone hurt you.

B. This may be work which comes up because you are aware of feelings you have towards someone or towards the group. Remember that these feelings do not have to be negative ones, and they don't have to be strong feelings. It is not necessary to wait until the person does something in group to stimulate your feelings again. It is valid to just bring up your reaction out of the blue. In fact sometimes this is a better way to do it.

Remember that all four of these areas may change over time during your stay in the group. I recommend that you think about these issues before each group meeting, and decide what work you will initiate that night. If you haven't done it sooner, it can be good to do this in your car on the way to group. If you have difficulty understanding any of the four areas, bring it up in a consultation or in group.

Personal Qualities which Facilitate Growth

There are certain personal qualities which are very helpful in facilitating your growth in an Interactive Group. These are self-compassion, trust, courage, involvement, and responsibility. The more you have these qualities when you enter a group, the more you will get out of it. However, paradoxically, people often join group in order to develop these qualities; in other words, they are growing edges. You may want to put particular effort into cultivating these qualities, because they will help you with your other goals in group. Not only are these six qualities valuable in themselves, they will also enhance your overall work in group.

Self-Compassion

As you begin to become aware of your feelings and experience in group and you get feedback from others, you will see some patterns of interacting which don’t work well for you. You may see how you hold back too much or how you are insensitive to others. You may see how you defend yourself unnecessarily or how you damp your aliveness. You will see things about yourself which may make you feel ashamed.

It is a delicate moment when this happens. It is very easy to get down on yourself, to feel judgmental toward yourself. It is very easy to imagine that other people are looking down at you or that they are disgusted with you. In order for awareness to be useful it must be combined with compassion--compassion for yourself. In these moments it is important to be caring toward yourself, to realize that we all have problems and that you are only human. You are not perfect, and neither is anyone else. Everyone in the group is there to work on their issues, and your issues are no more shameful than anyone else’s. People who are not in groups or in therapy also have issues and difficulties in life. The group leader also has difficulties, even if you don’t see them in group. No one is perfect.

It is very helpful to adopt a warm, gentle, loving attitude toward yourself and your difficulties. Cultivate an attitude of caring about yourself. In fact, you should congratulate yourself for being interested in working on yourself. You deserve credit not only for joining a group, but also for being willing to look at yourself clearly enough to see your problems. Whenever you become aware of a difficulty, give yourself credit for seeing it, and trust that you can change it in time.

Self-compassion is especially needed when your awareness of a difficulty is triggered by a comment of the leader or a challenge from a group member. It is very easy to feel like you’ve been caught at being bad and to feel ashamed at yourself. This can then turn into anger at the person who challenged you or it can turn into self-deprecation, blocking of feelings, or depression. If your issues are different than those of some other people in the group, it is easy to think that somehow yours are unacceptable. At this point it may help to remind yourself that everyone gets challenged in group, and everyone has issues. You deserve caring and compassion just as the other group members do.

Sometimes it helps to remember that there is pain behind your problems. You are not a bad person. You have suffered pain in your life, and this has led you to develop defenses and ways of reacting which were necessary at the time of the original pain. These defensive patterns may not be necessary now; they may be causing you trouble now, and that is why you are working on changing them. These defenses deserve to be honored for the protection they gave you when you were young and vulnerable. And you deserve compassion for your pain and for your current struggle to heal yourself.

It may be difficult for you to be compassionate with yourself. For some people, this is a major growing edge and not easy to accomplish. If this is true for you, be compassionate with yourself for your difficulty in being compassionate with yourself. Don’t judge yourself for judging yourself. It can be very helpful to be aware of those times in group when you feel ashamed of yourself or judgmental toward yourself and to mention it as soon as you become aware. Then the leader can work with you on it. At these time, it is very helpful to get feedback from the group. You will probably receive much acceptance and support. This makes it a little easier to accept yourself.

Trust

In order for you to be able to make yourself vulnerable and take risks, you need to trust the leader and the group. You need to be able to trust that they care about you and like you, that you are important to them and they are on your side. This is especially important during confrontations or conflicts. Without this trust you can’t feel safe to take the risks which are necessary for your growth in group. Trust is the ability to see the best in other people, to believe that they are loving, caring people, and to believe that they can care about you. A trusting person can often inspire warm, caring feelings in others, thereby creating a situation which validates their trust.

Of course, not everyone can be trusted, and occasionally people get hurt because they are too naively trusting. Therefore, trust often takes time. It doesn’t work to make yourself trust. Trust must develop gradually and naturally through interaction and risk. You trust a little and take a few small chances and see how you are received. When people respond in a caring way, this enables you to trust a little more, and therefore risk a little more, and so on.

One of the best ways to develop trust, paradoxically, is to express your mistrust and work on it. If you feel mistrustful, rather than trying to make yourself be trusting, talk about what you don’t trust. If you feel that the leader is siding against you in an interaction, say so. If someone in the group says something positive to you, and you don’t trust that they mean it, say so. If you think that someone doesn’t like you, tell them. In the ensuing interaction, the two of you will work it out. Most likely by the end of the interaction, either you will trust the person more, or they will acknowledge that you were right in your perception, or you will achieve some combination of the two.

Some people have trust as one of their major growing edges. If this is true for you, you may need to proceed slowly at first. Don’t try to do anything which requires more trust than you feel at any given time. Keep bringing up your feelings of mistrust and working on them. If you feel betrayed by someone, bring it up as soon as possible. If you keep such feelings to yourself, you may feel so bad that you will be inclined to leave group, and then you’ll lose the chance to work through the trust issue. It is also OK to bring up feelings of mistrust toward the leader. This can be very important work. If there is not enough time in group to work it through, you can work on it in your consultations or you can schedule some individual sessions to work it through.

Courage

Many of the things you must do for your growth in an Interactive Group can be difficult or scary, especially during the Entrance and Inclusion Stages. Even long time group members occasionally must take big risks. It takes courage to take these risks, even if you have already developed trust and self-compassion. Courage is a quality to cultivate in yourself which will give you large dividends in group. Courage means the willingness to take a risk even though you are frightened. It doesn’t mean eliminating the fear; it means being able to act despite the fear.

Cultivate the courage to recognize the feelings which you have toward other group members and to bring them up, even if you are scared. There are certain feelings which people find especially hard to talk about--judgment, jealousy, sexual attraction. But these often bring the greatest benefit. Cultivate the courage to be open to whatever feelings come up in you when someone else initiates work with you. Also cultivate the courage to recognize what your growing edges are, and initiate work which challenges them.

Initiative is a component of courage. It is easy to sit back in an Interactive Group and let other people initiate the work, hoping that they will include you, or fearing that they will. This is not such a bad idea at first while you are learning about how the group operates, but if you continue to be passive too long, you will lose out on many opportunities for growth. When working on initiative, it helps to plan a piece of work in advance and push yourself to bring it up right at the beginning of group, or at the first break in the action.

Initiative is crucial for people who have trouble speaking up in a group. There are some people who can function well in a group as long as someone else speaks to them first, but they have great trouble initiating their own work, or even their own conversations. If this is an issue for you, bring this up in group as a growing edge of yours, so that it can be worked on explicitly in group. You may need to work on it with the leader in your consultations as well.

In working on this, it is valuable to be aware of every time you have an impulse to say something in group and hold yourself back. Then you can push yourself to say it. You might even let the group know that you are working on this, so they won’t be surprised if you are awkward about it at first. Here your growing edge is simply to speak your mind, as often as possible. You can also probably count on the other group members to call on you from time to time if you haven’t worked up the courage to speak yourself. But ultimately, you must find the courage to initiate your own work, repeatedly. This can be very difficult, but the rewards will be correspondingly great.

Involvement

Because of the nature of interactive work, you must be willing to get emotionally involved with the other group members. This means more than just expressing your feelings toward them. It means allowing your relationships with them to develop, to have importance for you. It doesn’t necessarily mean seeing them outside of group, but it does mean that at least some of the group members will become emotionally important in your life. If you don’t have room emotionally for connections with the people in your group, you will be limited in how much you can get. This is important to consider before you join a group. There is tremendous richness of depth and connection that can emerge for you, but if you know that you are not available for it, an Interactive Group may not be right for you.

Of course, many of us have difficulties with involvement. You may need it a great deal. It may terrify you. You may withdraw from conflict; you may avoid closeness. You may have commitment issues, contact difficulties, etc. This is all fair game for the group. These are the growing edges which we all have with regard to intimacy. You only need to be willing to face these issues when they arise and to work toward deeper involvement. Most importantly, bring these issues up whenever you become aware of them, so you can work on them.

Responsibility

Responsibility means being in charge of your own growth and being willing to look at yourself clearly and to see your part in an interaction. Being in charge of your growth is related to the qualities of courage and initiative. It means actively thinking about your growing edges and how to work on them in group. It means being an active agent for yourself in group. You don’t wait for the leader or the other group members to make things happen for you. Of course, your ability to take this kind of responsibility will grow as you gain more experience with group and the interactive modality. A new group member can’t be as in charge of their work as someone who has been in group for three years. However, you can have a responsible attitude no matter what your level of knowledge. This is something to cultivate.

Responsibility also means being willing to own your feelings. If you are angry at someone for something they did in group, you can express the anger in a way that makes it clear that it is your anger. It is your reaction to this person. Someone else might react differently. This is different from judging the person--in essence telling them they were wrong or bad to do what they did. Even if you feel judgmental toward them, you can still own it as your judgment. A responsible attitude toward your reactions contributes a great deal to working out conflicts. It allows everyone to express themselves fully without threatening the safety of the group.

Responsibility also means being willing to be self-critical. It means being willing to recognize that you may have played a part in a conflict you are having, not assuming that it is all the other person’s fault. You are able to step back from the heat of an interaction and observe yourself with some objectivity. You’re able to explore where you may have had a button pushed, where one of your issues may have been stirred up. When someone suggests that you look at your part in an interaction, you can hear them without defensiveness. You can check inside and see if you agree with their perception.

Being self-critical doesn’t mean being judgmental toward yourself. You need to see as clearly as you can what you did, what your motivation was, and the effect it had on the other person. But you need to do this without self-judgment. In fact, it needs to be done with compassion, caring, and love for yourself.

Responsibility is a quality to cultivate, and you may have to work on it in group. It might be one of your growing edges. You may have a tendency to blame others, or to get defensive. When criticized, you may have a tendency to feel so bad about yourself that you can’t look at the criticism. When any of these feelings come up, let the group know, and be open to working on developing responsibility.

Intimacy Stage

The Intimacy Stage continues the work of the Mutuality Stage, but at a deeper level. Some of your relationships have deepened to an intimate level, and therefore, the issues and growing edges which come up for you reflect that depth and intensity.

Bringing a Relationship into Group

For this level of work to happen, you must not only be close to some people in the group, but you must interact with those people in the group. As I mentioned before, if you have a close relationship with a group member outside the group, you must bring it in. The two of you must be willing to challenge each other in group, and you must also be able to work explicitly on deepening your connection with each other.

For example, Philip and Elena gradually developed a friendship outside of group. They had lunch together and sometimes called each other for support. They felt good about each other and very accepting of each other, but there was no romantic involvement. At some point Elena realized that she used the genuine acceptance which she felt toward Phil as an excuse to avoid telling him things she didn’t like about the way he was in group. She was afraid of losing what they had. Phil realized that he often felt a need for more contact with Elena in group but was afraid to reach out for it. He rationalized this by saying that he could always see her outside of group.

At one group meeting, Phil decided to risk bringing their relationship into group. Elena had missed a couple of meetings before that night, and Phil began to tell her that he had missed her in group and was annoyed at her for being absent. Elena replied by explaining why she had to miss group. Phil then realized that he wasn’t really saying what he needed to say. He realized that he needed to tell her how important she was to him. With the leader’s help, he said this in a way which really conveyed his feelings, and there followed a moment of intense contact between them. Elena was very moved and felt warm and close, but she was scared of the intensity and started to change the subject. The leader kept her in the present with Phil, and she let him know how moved she was and how much he meant to her. As a result, they deepened their relationship, and each of them grew in their ability to make intense contact and tolerate intimacy.

In the Intimacy Stage, interactive work between two people sometimes takes this form, where the work is focused on the "contact" between the people. We focus on their ability to be present with each other in the moment and to be in touch with their feelings for each other. This may or may not be expressed in words. Sometimes it just comes through in the eye contact. If words are used, it is the expression which is important, not the content. Contact is an important aspect of intimacy.

Deeper Work

As your relationships in group become more important to you, many issues which were resolved before come up again because of the deeper intimacy. This is also true in outside life. You will often find that when you first enter a love relationship (or when you end the honeymoon phase) old feelings and issues crop up which you thought were resolved. This doesn’t really mean that the growth you made wasn’t real. You had resolved your issues at that level, but now the increased intimacy has brought you to a new depth, and the old issues must be worked through at this level.

The Intimacy Stage in an Interactive Group works in the same way, giving you a chance to work through your issues at a deeper level. You may find that it is more frightening to express negative feelings because now you really have something to lose if you are rejected. When you reach this stage, watch for a sudden absence of negative reactions to people in group. It is easy to attribute this to the increased closeness, but often it is because of a renewed fear of conflict. Some people find that expressing positive feelings is now more difficult because of the closeness involved. You can be more deeply hurt by someone who means a lot to you. Dependency needs can come up in a close relationship. These are all opportunities for deep work.

Group as Healthy Family

By the time a group enters the Intimacy Stage, there are not only close relationships between certain pairs of people in the group, there is also a profound sense of group connection. This is partially based on all the strong relationships between pairs of group members, but it goes beyond that. By this time, you’ve been through a lot together. You’ve challenged each other and fought each other. You’ve helped each other and cared for each other. You’ve revealed some of your darkest secrets and been accepted and appreciated. You’ve shown your pain and also your strength and joy. The group has become a unit, a community, a healthy family, in which each person is valued and loved and in which each person can be autonomous and powerful. This bonding is already strong in the Mutuality Stage, and it becomes even clearer and stronger in the Intimacy Stage.

This gives the group enormous power for healing. The reason for this becomes apparent when you look at the origins of our psychological problems. Most of them come from the way we were treated as children, primarily by our parents, but also by other important people in our lives. We are very dependent and vulnerable as children, so the relationships we have with our caretakers shape our psyches to such a large extent, in both positive and negative ways. This is why individual therapy so often focuses on childhood issues, and why "inner child" work is so popular these days.

If the origins of many of our problems are in our early relationships, then our healing will also be through relationships. In individual therapy this often happens through the relationship with your therapist. In an Interactive Group it happens through your relationships with all the group members. The group becomes like the healthy family you always wanted and needed. When you open yourself to pain (which often comes from childhood) and are then offered a healing response from someone in group (or from the whole group), you are able to take it in fully and let it truly change you. You can do this because you trust your group. You have a sense of coming home.

This also happens, of course, in individual therapy, but it’s sometimes easy to feel that your therapist is the only person who understands and accepts you. In a group you know it’s the whole "family," and this gives it a greater sense of reality, a stronger feeling that you actually deserve it. You also participate in other people’s healing and growth, and this promotes a recognition of your own value and worth. You have the experience of feeling yourself as part of a larger whole which is loving and growthful.

Transference and Healing

I have already mentioned the value of transference--how we all react to others at times as if they were people from our original families. Once a group enters the Intimacy Stage, this transference takes on new dimensions because of the increased intimacy. You begin to live out your deepest interactive patterns--those which come from your original family. You notice that you are relating to one person in group as you did with your mother. Another reminds you of your father, another of your sister. You transfer both positive and negative feelings from the past onto group members.

Transference can cause problems of course, but we are used to dealing with problems in group. In an Interactive Group, problems become opportunities for growth. Transference gives you an opportunity to heal old pain by working through destructive messages which come from your past. In the group, things can come out differently than they did in your childhood. With the support of the group, the guidance of the leader, and the openness of the person you are interacting with, almost anything can be resolved in a healthy way. In the Intimacy Stage, because of the intensity of your relationships, they reach deeper into your past, so that when they are resolved the healing goes deep, too.

For example, Diane developed a relationship with an older woman Andrea which was very warm and caring on both sides. Diane especially looked to Andrea for caring and acceptance, and always got it. But Diane unconsciously paid the price of remaining a child. She never challenged Andrea, and she had the feeling that she couldn’t really make it in group without her. She had recreated with Diane part of her relationship with her mother.

Then, as a result of Diane’s growth, this suddenly changed. She broke the protective bubble she had constructed. She started criticizing Andrea. And one night Andrea wasn’t sensitive to something Diane was going through and Diane got deeply hurt. She became mistrustful of Andrea and withdrew. No matter what Andrea did, Diane couldn’t allow herself to open up to the love between them. This was also a pattern from her family, where she had learned that relationships weren’t safe. In her family, conflict was suppressed, and when it did erupt, it was never resolved. The message she learned was that a truly loving person would never hurt you, so once a person hurt you they were never to be trusted again.

However, the bond between Diane and Andrea went very deep. Andrea was patient and they worked on their relationship repeatedly over the next weeks and months. Gradually Diane opened up to Andrea again and they became close, but on a new footing now, with Diane not so much the child. Diane had worked through a profound disabling message from her childhood, and had worked it through at a deep level.

Termination

At some point you feel that you have gained most of what you want from group. You have grown in the ways you needed and it is time to move on. You aren’t likely to ever have the sense that there isn’t more to learn in group. It is more of a sense of having gotten what you needed and wanting to try new things. Sometimes you choose to leave group because there is something else more important for you to do on that night. Sometimes other life contingencies force you to leave. There is always the opportunity to come back to group at a later time if you decide you want to do more.

Deciding Whether to Leave

The decision about whether or not to leave group can be a tricky one, in either direction. It is possible that you might want to leave group because some important issues are coming up for you in group, and you unconsciously want to run away. On the other hand, it might be right for you to leave, but you might be afraid of the group’s reaction or you might be afraid of facing life without the group, so you might stay longer than is appropriate. I recommend talking through your decision with the group leader and with the group before you emotionally commit yourself to leaving or staying.

The biggest reason why people leave the group prematurely is because they feel hurt or rejected by the group or by someone in the group. Sometimes a person is not aware that this is going on, and they make up other reasons for leaving. Sometimes a person is aware of the hurt but thinks that it can’t be worked out. They think that the group really doesn’t like them and that this can’t change. This is rarely the case. Often by talking this through with the leader in a consultation, the person gets the clarity and courage to bring it up with the group. And almost invariably they are surprised at the outcome.

Sometimes a person doesn’t feel rejected by the group, but they don’t really have a sense of being appreciated, of being important to the people in the group. Often the person doesn’t even realize that they need to feel appreciated. So they just drift away from the group emotionally and then decide to leave. Often when they bring it up, they are shocked to discover how much the group members care about them and want them around. This can be a major awakening and turning point in the person’s group experience. For all these reasons it is important not to commit yourself to leaving until you have fully talked it through with the leader and group.

Dealing with People’s Reactions

When you announce to the group that you are thinking about leaving, the group will sometimes try to talk you into staying. Very likely people in the group will be disappointed about your leaving. In fact, they will probably express a whole range of feelings. This is an important opportunity for further interactive work. Some people don’t realize how valued and loved they are, so this can be a chance to take this in. It can be wonderfully validating. Some people tend to give in to other people’s needs too easily, and for you, this can be a difficult time, and a golden opportunity for work on this. Here your growing edge would be to stay in touch with your own need to leave despite hearing how much other people want you to stay. The object in this work is to stay true to yourself and at the same time be open to other people’s feelings and perspectives.

Finishing Up

Once you have decided to leave, there is important work ahead in finishing up with each of your relationships in the group and dealing with the loss. You are required to leave two weeks for this, but if you have been in the group for long enough to have entered the Intimacy Stage, I recommend that you set aside three or four weeks or even more. This gives you a chance to have a significant interaction with each person. You would be surprised at what often happens during this leaving time. Many people do some of their most important work in group.

People often bring up things which they want to say to you but haven’t gotten around to saying until then. You have a chance to talk to those people you want to continue seeing after you leave group. You will be encouraged to review all you have done and how you have grown since you joined group. If you have any difficulties in dealing with loss or saying goodbye, this is the perfect chance to work on them. Most of all, it is a time for appreciations, love, and affirmation of yourself and the connections you have made in the group.

When Others Terminate

When other group members decide to leave group, it often brings up feelings of loss or abandonment. It may also bring up feelings about life being unstable or unsafe. These feelings may especially come up if more than one person leaves near the same time. Make sure to talk about these feelings in group and take responsibility for them. Don’t just try to talk the person into staying. This is a chance for you to explore these issues in yourself. If a number of people are leaving, and the group feels unstable, this is an opportunity for the rest of the group to pull together and create your own sense of cohesion and stability.

Spiritual Development

An Interactive Group promotes spiritual development because it is an exercise in love. You learn to accept people’s foibles. You learn compassion for people’s pain and difficulties. You learn to appreciate the beauty in people’s depths and to celebrate their strength and growth. You learn to make contact at a deep level in shared love. Most importantly, you learn to do this without giving yourself up. No one is telling you that you should be loving, it just happens naturally as part of the group process and your own growth. You are never encouraged to be loving at the expense of standing up for your own needs or at the expense of suppressing your anger or hurt. This makes the loving thoroughly genuine and facilitates transferring it from group into your outside life.

Community

We human beings evolved as a species living in small intimate groups--extended families and tribes. The need for group bonding and intimacy is in our bones. We all crave a connection with a group of people who know us and love us. We grew up in families which tried to fulfill that need for us, though they often failed. Even those of us who grew up in relatively functional families still have a hard time finding that sense of family or community as adults.

Our culture has become fragmented and full of alienation. Our mobile, industrial society has lost most of its sense of community. We used to get it from the neighborhood or from the workplace, but now these are often faceless, unfriendly places. Even where we find community of the old fashioned kind, it too often does not allow us the autonomy to be ourselves. We are forced to fit in at the expense of small town gossip and censure. This sense of closeness is often hard to find in our original families because they are too restrictive or they simply don’t understand us. We try to create our own community among people of common interests and values, and sometimes this works, but it is difficult. We are in a time of profound historical transformation, when our old ways of doing things are breaking down, and we must create new ones. We must find new ways to connect with each other and with the natural world, so that we don’t fall into war, ecological destruction, and economic chaos.

One of the things our society needs is to develop a new sense of community, which includes the closeness we need without the stifling restriction. We need a way to love each other while allowing each person to be fully themselves. Interactive Groups provide a model for this and a method for achieving it. I hope they can contribute something to the new healthy society which is struggling to be born.

I have been leading Interactive Groups since 1978, and I love the process. I love the excitement and the intensity. I love the genuineness of people’s responses and the depths to which people go. Most of all, I love the deep caring and love which people share. I hope that this paper gives you some idea of the richness and possibility of these groups, and if you join one, I hope that it aids you in getting the most from your group.

Back to Jay Earley Home     Back to Group Therapy Home