Existential Group Counselling and Psychotherapy

Karen Weixel-Dixon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429556944
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

Existential Group Counselling and Psychotherapy provides a theoretical and practical foundation for practice. It serves as a guide that provides a solid grounding in the 'why' and 'how' of therapeutic group-work from an existential perspective.

The first section of the book, Modern Origins, offers a review of modern western sources: a survey of early developments, what formats have endured, and to what extent these antecedents have informed, but are distinct from, current paradigms. The second section, Being and Doing, provides a description of the existential phenomenological paradigm for group therapeutic groupwork, reviewing possible therapeutic effects, as well as risks and disappointments that may affect both members, and facilitators. Part three, Doing and Being, covers practice, procedure, and possible problems.

Written in a practical, accessible style, and incorporating clinical vignettes and anecdotal material, the book will be relevant for counsellors and psychotherapists in training and practice, as well as for special interest organisations that sponsor groups.

Part I
Modern western origins

Chapter 1
Historical overview

We humans seem to prefer clear dichotomies to ambiguous positions: black and white, right and wrong, true and false, winning and losing, and, perhaps the most significant divide for a conscious being, life and death.

Dichotomies seem to present us with clear pictures, leaving little room for debate or uncertainty: they make our choices ‘easier’. This proposal will be the subject of a later discussion about the human predicament and how we engage with the condition of uncertainty.

The historical development of group models, indeed of psychotherapy as a whole, reflects at least three classical dichotomies: nurture/nature, inside/outside, and individual/group.

Some basic considerations reflected in these questions might be inferred. Are we (each) a product of innate nature, that is, inherent personal characteristics, or of the external forces of nurture, as in the social and familial impositions to which we are subjected? Is there a ‘self’, an entity ‘inside’, completely separate, though related to the ‘outside’, which is everything and everyone else? And which configuration is primary, the individual or the ‘group’ (family, society, etc.)?

It is likely that proponents of both the humanistic and the psychodynamic schools of thought would recognise proposals such as ‘the true self lies within’, or ‘be your own person’, or ‘authenticity requires one to be true to themselves’; these perspectives give priority to the individual ‘inside’. A corollary of this view is that one’s authenticity can be compromised by conceding to public dictates or the expectations of others.

Similarly, the psychodynamic paradigms are generally inclined to address that which is ‘inside’: the unconscious is a repository of truth as well as fiction, although it is also proposed that neither of these perspectives is readily accessible to the being to which they belong.

Additionally, the nature/nurture polarity is generally applied in support of the orthodoxy that ‘nature’ reflects what is ‘natural’, or ‘real’, and is therefore (more) genuine than ‘nurture’, which is represented in culture-bound values and therefore subjective and possibly ambiguous.

It has been suggested that the positions described here are not exclusively ‘either/or’; there can be a ‘dialectic between the seeming polarities, as Dalal suggests:

Thus the Freudian schema is…a complicated dialectic between the inside and the outside.

(Dalal, 1998, p. 18)

It should be noted, however, that rather than dispute that divide, this is a comment on the connection between the subdivisions.

Certainly, all three dualities noted here seem to imply that the individual, related to but separate from the outer world, is more fundamental than the group.

One’s perspective on these issues will, to a large extent, be reflected in the paradigm of choice for group counselling and psychotherapy. Most models favour the view that the group is a collection of individuals; the existential phenomenological paradigm challenges the very notion of ‘individual’, as we shall see.

These themes will be further elucidated in the following chapters on the early pioneers of groupwork and the development of their approaches: Chapter 2, Kurt Lewin; Chapter 3, Wilfred Bion; Chapter 4, S.H. Foulkes; Chapter 5, Carl Rogers; and Chapter 6, Irvin D. Yalom.

The second section will also review a small part of the numerous historical precedents that gave rise to the appreciation of group psychotherapy and counselling as practices that are equally effective as that of individual therapy. The reigning view prior to the more modern developments was that group therapy was a concession to limited resources, like time, money, and trained personnel, and could not provide the therapeutic effects expected with traditional models.

The work of five seminal theorists and practitioners will be reviewed in brief, and the move from institutionalised, organisational, and learning focused group-work to psychotherapeutic frameworks will be traced through their efforts and contributions.

These are not the only contributors, but rather are those that, in my estimation, demonstrate how the humanistic approach was appreciated by analytical theorists, and how it gradually informed and shaped groupwork prior to it being appreciated as a paradigm in its own right.

The review of principles that were tried, discarded, retained, and revised is also interesting in terms of current thought and practice.

Reference

• Dalal, F. Taking the Group Seriously, 1998, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London.

Chapter 2
Kurt Lewin (1890–1947)

Kurt Lewin was born in Prussia, one of four siblings in a Jewish family. His university studies were diverse: medicine, philosophy, psychology. He didn’t complete his PhD at the University of Berlin until after his service in WWI.

Lewin immigrated to the United States in 1933, where he worked at Cornell University and for the Child Welfare Research Station at the University of Iowa. It was under the auspices of this latter organisation that he constructed an experiment in association with R. Lippitt and R.K. White that demonstrated the effects upon children, in the age range of 10 and 11 years, of ‘democratic’ and ‘authoritarian’ group leadership styles.

Lewin offers this description of the autocratic leadership style:

the autocratic atmosphere gives a much greater and aggressive dominance of the leader, and a narrowing down of the free movement of the members.

(Lewin, 1948, p. 77)

The leader in this role would decide, for example, who could work with whom; he would set specific goals and specify exactly how these were to be accomplished. He would critically evaluate the results without stating the reason or evidence of the qualification.

The democratic leader would allow the group to determine policy and procedure. Members were free to work with whomever they chose. The leader would be more of a participant in the group processes, without taking over the actual work; he offered praise with justification.

The results of this project were significant on many levels.

In terms of how the children related to each other: in the autocratic group, children were more hostile, aggressive, divisive, and competitive. In the democratic group, children were more deferential to each other, more cooperative, and more creative, and their language reflected more ‘we’ statements as opposed to the ‘I’-focused statements noted in the other group.

In terms of how the children related to the leaders in each group: in the autocratic group, the children’s approach to the leader was submissive and more frequently initiated by the children compared to the democratic group, and they were less likely to offer alternatives means of implementing plans to those specified by the leader.

In the democratic group, the children demonstrated a more independent relationship and sought input from the leader less frequently; they were more likely to bond among themselves rather than seek attention from the leader.

It was clear the leadership style affected the relationships among the children as much as their relationship to the leader.

There was a further observation with reference to the notion of power within the two groups: as the children in the autocratic group had no possibility of acquiring any status or power in their group, they resorted to scapegoating a member. Lewin comments:

In other words, every child became a potential enemy of every other one…through combining in an attack against one individual the members who otherwise could not gain higher status were able to do so by violent suppression of one of their fellows.

(ibid., p. 80)

In the authoritarian group, the children experienced a limited amount of personal power and sought to impose their will on each other.

In the democratic group, it appeared that the power was shared, but not necessarily equally or consistently.

In an effort to address objections that these results were merely a matter of individual propensities, one child from each group was transferred to the other; it was but a short while before the children’s behaviour changed in accordance with the group to which they were relocated.

This experiment prompted consideration about leadership styles and their effects, an important factor with respect to any facilitated group endeavour.

In reviewing the findings of this experiment, Lewin states:

The group to which a child belongs is the ground on which he stands…the group the person is a part of, and the culture in which he lives, determine to a very high degree his behaviour and character.

(ibid., p. 82)

This proposal, extended to adults as well, underpins the subsequent work and findings pursued and offered by Lewin and his associates’ some of these became premises for a more inter-personal exercise, which in turn paved the way for the basis of psychotherapeutic approach.

The results of the experiment in Iowa, along with subsequent findings, clarified one of the most well known of Lewin’s proposals, that of the ‘field theory’, which Cohn describes:

Lewin’s ‘field theory’ proposes that each individual exists in a psychological field of forces that determines his or her behaviour…the emphasis here is on the total situation, on interaction rather than the co-existence of self-sufficient entities.

(Cohn, 1997, p. 48)

Lewin assents:

all actions are based on the ground the person happens to stand upon…. The firmness of his actions and the clearness of his decisions depend largely upon the stability of this ‘ground’.

(Lewin, 1948, p. 145)

As noted earlier, the ground to which Lewin refers is the group, or groups, that a person claims affiliation with, or ‘belongs’ to. The ‘figure’ is the individual, who stands as both a part-of and apart-from the background; and although an inherent aspect of the whole, the background is often subjugated.

It must be noted, in the quote cited, that Lewin assigns a primary position to the group: the essential condition is described as a ‘with-world’ in existential literature.

This concept also resonates with the ‘matrix’ as described by Foulkes, which will be discussed further, and with many of the existential notions of inter-relational and inter-subjective conditions that are outlined in later chapters of this text: Chapter 12, Relatedness; Chapter 21, The contributions of existential phenomenology; and Chapter 24, Relational issues.

Lewin went on to develop a model of learning and development known as the ‘T Group’, or training group.

Organised in 1946, this first project was intended to provide training to leaders in a government office. The small groups were primarily discussion groups in the first instance. The exchanges between...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• PART I Modern western origins
• PART II Being and doing
• PART III Doing and being
• Index