Basic Groupwork

Tom Douglas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134590766
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Basic Groupwork is a simple, practical guide to the processes of groupwork. This new edition has been extensively updated and revised to reflect the changes which have taken place in society and social behaviour since it was first published in 1978, but in essence it remains an accessible and friendly text for the novice practitioner.
In logical sequence the book follows the progress of one group from inception to close and exposes how groups work. Basic group processes explained include:

• how individuals bring their personal habitual responses to situations into a group
• how group constraints enhance or restrain group behaviour and achievement
• how a group is affected by the way in which it has originated
• how leadership and membership roles interact.

Basic Groupwork provides students with a sound and solid basis for any kind of groupwork, in any context.

Part I
HOW GROUPS WORK

1
A VERY DIVERSE FAMILY

The range of group forms

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept
All by the name of dogs: the valu’d file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous Nature
Hath in him clos'd; whereby he does receive
Particular addition, from the bill
That writes them all alike; and so of men.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth III.i.11

What Shakespeare implied about men and dogs is equally true about human groups: the apparent variety is immense and yet they all derive from a common stock. Even a cursory look around society will reveal an amazing number of seemingly different groups. There are groups formed for protection, such as neighbourhood watch schemes; for the removal of social nuisance behaviour, e.g. groups for those who offend by being racist, sexist or violent, or who sexually or physically abuse children or are guilty of rape; groups to exert pressure on decision-making bodies so as to try to obtain for a specific area amenities and facilities such as crossings for schoolchildren; literacy groups to enable those who cannot read or write to obtain adequate skills; groups which are set up to help those who are or who care for individuals with illnesses and handicaps like cystic fibrosis or mental illness or strokes; there are groups set up as special and specific therapy units for all manner of different problems, illnesses and complaints; there are groups which arise to meet the problems of those suffering from some particular need like Weight-Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous; there are fitness groups, leisure groups, training groups, special-interest groups; learning groups and classes of all sorts; work groups, clubs, societies, issues groups, groups for justice for some end or other; sponsor groups and groups for specific communities, ethnic minorities and so on – the list is endless. But, as I hope to show quite clearly, most groups, whatever their kind or origin, have more in common than they have in difference. However, at this point I am concerned with their differences.

DIFFERENCES

Perhaps the simplest and most usually offered distinction between groups is that which divides them into ‘natural’ or ‘created’ groups. The distinction is more apparent than real, but it is of immense psychological importance. Individuals have an innate suspicion of ‘created’ groups on the grounds that they are artificial, whereas what is perceived as a ‘natural’ group, such as a family or a friendship group, is more acceptable because its origins lie in the history of any particular culture and it does not have the appearance of having been set up deliberately and with intent.

A natural group is one which arose to meet a particular purpose, which essentially has to be one which is other than that of the creation itself. In other words, it arose because there was a task to perform which could best be met by a number of individuals working together, but in which no great emphasis was placed upon the way in which the group existed as a definable social system. Indeed, this aspect would rarely be acknowledged at all. Created groups, by contrast, are those which are brought into being by virtue of the conscious intent of one or more people to create a group to meet some specific purpose. Such people have more or less understanding of the properties which groups develop and of their apparent usefulness in achieving certain kinds of ends.

In natural groups, the group form is a very minor consideration in the major need to generate a kind of organization of the resources necessary to meet an urgent need; in the second type of group, the group's creation in order to use its functional processes is an intentional process which is much more cognizant of the actual processes that operate within groups.

In a sense the dichotomy natural/created is confusing. What is probably much closer to reality is the degree of consciousness of the dynamics of groups and of the intent of the originators of groups to use that knowledge. In all probability the only truly natural group is the family when it is based around the production and protection of children, and their nurture. It is natural because in some form or other it has always existed, and because without some form of long-term protection no human infant would survive. But even here, as we shall see, the family unit can be composed in a variety of different ways, as witness the rise in the number of sole-parent families over the past twenty years.

So the process by which a groupworker seeks to make the members of the group aware of the dynamics – the processes – of a group so that they become available to be used is one of developing an attention to and conscious awareness of those processes, in the same way that individuals interested in painting can be brought to see colour and form in a way that most people do not.

THE GROUP AS CONTEXT AND AS INSTRUMENT

A very important distinction between groups is the one drawn between the group as context and the group as instrument. Now, this is a piece of jargon which represents a distinction that many people find very hard to grasp, although it represents a very real difference, one which is more than just a difference in the way the group happens to be run and is a much more fundamental distinction of belief about the way in which human beings can change their thinking and behaviour patterns.

A group can be set up in which the basic aim is that each individual member works with the leadership in achieving that individual's own personal goals. The rest of the group form a background to this work and each takes this position of interaction with the leadership in turn. Many therapy groups are run on exactly these lines. When this occurs, the group is said to be the context. Other groups are set up in which the leadership try to establish a situation in which all the members come to trust one another sufficiently to see the advantages of working together as a unit. In other words, they assume responsibility for the running of the group. The leadership is not now unduly dominant as the members exercise the power and the influence they have learned to grasp for their mutual benefit. In this case the group itself – that is, the sum total of its members and leadership acting as a unit – has become the instrument of achievement.

However, if the ideas of context and instrument appear difficult, a simpler version is at hand in the form of style of leadership. Briefly, there are three main points on the range of leadership styles. They are usually defined as directive, i.e. leader-oriented; enabling or facilitative, i.e. group oriented; and mutual. Very few groups are actually found operating as pure forms of these salient points. Most are combinations of the main forms, according to their appropriateness to the stage which a group has reached in its life. But before we look at the possible complications, let us look briefly at the ‘pure’ forms, as we will consider the nature of leadership in more detail in Chapter 5.

Groups which benefit from a directive leadership are usually those where the actual resources of the group members are of secondary importance to those exercised by the leadership. Such groups are those in which the understanding and knowledge of the leadership is essential in guiding the group members, explaining, offering information to which the members had no previous access, revealing the consequences of particular behavioural patterns which were being avoided or which may never have been previously considered, and in general applying knowledge on a wider, more substantial scale to the kinds of predicaments and problems possessed by the group's members. In system terminology, most of the energy, input and control of response comes from the leadership. This does not mean that the contribution of the members is of no importance, or there would be no advantage in their being members of such a group and group members' problems could just as well be dealt with on a one-to-one basis. Members learn about their own personal patterns of problems from being present as the similar problems of fellow members are dealt with, and then they work with the leadership in the context of the group when their turn arrives and provide learning opportunities for their fellows in turn. Alternatively, the leadership may work with the total group membership by a process of involving them by direct approaches and by setting tasks and exposing what is going on in the group.

Enabling and facilitative leadership is a process of encouragement by which the leadership sets out with the basic intent of showing the members of a group what resources they possess and the ways in which these can be used in dealing with the business for which the group was established, and supporting them while they learn the ropes. In some ways this form of leadership may be just as controlling as directive leadership. The essential difference is that pure directive leadership is promulgated on the assumption of retaining control of the group's processes during the whole of the group's existence. Facilitative leadership, on the other hand, uses directive techniques with the intent of teaching by demonstration and controlled experience that the control and use of the group's resources is available to group members and the power and skill in their use can be developed. This essential difference may in the end be located in a different understanding of how people can change their behaviour. In the latter the belief rests on the assumption that ‘true’ change – that is, change which ‘sticks’ can only come from the individual's willingness to change. This is usually referred to as the ‘private acceptance’ of change. Directive leadership seems to be founded in the assumption that the problems some people face can be resolved only by the application of external expertise and by their being constrained to follow certain well-defined paths.

In essence, mutual groups are self-help groups, a combinatorial exercise in which individuals with the same or similar concerns band together in order to obtain satisfaction of those concerns which they have usually found unattainable when operating on their own. Such groups are often generated by some of those who become their members; they are essentially numerically supportive, and leadership is of the order of a committee structure, either self-imposed or elective, depending on the perception members have of the value and worth of individual members in exercising some rights of leadership. Some such groups are brought into existence at the suggestion of professional workers, who take some responsibility for helping the group get off the ground, but take no hand in its direction. They may remain available to be consulted if the group so wishes when advice and information would be helpful.

Where people are facing a situation which has the potential to bring about large changes in their accustomed lifestyle, then fear of the unknown, anxiety about the possible consequences, and worry about whether their coping behaviours will prove to be adequate frequently occur. At such a point in life, one individual may well be very pleased to meet someone who has passed through this stage as well as a number of others who are just going through it. In the first instance, the individual is presented with a person who has undergone a group experience and apparently survived and benefited from it. Such a person can talk from personal experience about what happened to others who are going through a similar experience. Such an individual carries a high level of credibility and can help to expose others to different viewpoints and also to different ways of trying to cope.

Within limits, more people means more ideas, and thus the possibility that ways of approaching a problem or a predicament which individual members of a group had not thought of for themselves can be presented for their consideration and eventual use. It is these factors of experience and the production of alternative ideas which can be successfully exploited by groups with a large element of self-help about them. For instance, it would seem that for individuals whose behaviour is regarded as asocial, and those who are addicted to drugs, say, what works is that they are given the chance to live in a community where they make the rules and they enforce them – a democracy in which each member can come to realize that s/he is responsible for his/her own behaviour and also for the behaviour of the community as a whole.

A large number of groups currently in existence have a form of leadership which is exercised by more than one person – that is, co-leadership or partnership. In such cases the individual leaders may not only have different styles on the range of directive/enabling, but also attend to different areas of the group process. For example, one may be attentive to the group's performance of their allotted task while another will be devoted to the interpersonal relationships of the members. Leaders may also act as role models of particular areas of human relationships, e.g. male/ female; black/white; and so on.

As I hope to show later, several forms of leadership may occur in a single group over its duration in order to meet the assessed needs of the group at a particular time. This can only occur, however, if the leadership is not wholly grounded in the assumption that only one form or kind of leadership is appropriate. Such a decision, usually based upon the whole-hearted acceptance of a particular dogma concerning human behaviour, renders the leadership less flexible in dealing with changes in the group's needs. It must be said, however, with great emphasis, that there are conditions of group members where such an inflexible leadership style is exactly what is required and which confers support and reassurance for members who have little confidence in themselves at that moment in their lives.

DEFINITIONS OF GROUPS

A group can be defined in many ways, such as according to its purpose, its activity, or the field of endeavour in which it is established, and according to the principal theory of human behaviour which motivates the group's direction; to the needs and aims which the group was created to satisfy. We will note some of these approaches to the definition of groups in rather more detail during the course of our explorations. But of much greater immediate need is that we try to explain the enormous spread in the use of groups by looking at the broad principles of why and how they work.

HOW GROUPS WORK

It would seem logical to assume that because groups are so widely used in such a variety of situations, they are actually reasonably successful. On further examination, it is possible to see that groups which operate in certain ways are more successful than others. For instance, those groups which seem to be founded by people who see them as a means to increasing the social power of their members by the simple fact of numbers tend to be successful. Those groups which are based upon supplying a need of their members which cannot be met as well anywhere else and which can therefore draw upon a strong level of commitment are again usually very successful. Those groups which have as their main task the imparting of useful information are also successful, provided that the concept of ‘useful’ is one derived from the members as much as from the convenors. On the other side of the coin are those groups which are founded with the express purpose of changing behaviour patterns in socially accepted ways; they usually have a fairly tough time in achieving lasting effects.

It is instructive to look at why this is so.

A group is a miniature social system which reflects the behavioural patterns of the society from which its members come. Because it is a small social system, those behaviour patterns, good as well as bad, are available for scrutiny. Once exposed, by the pure fact of occurring in a confined social space in which they can be seen, rather than through any intended confrontational technique, their consequences are available for discussion. Different models of behaviour can be on offer as much from fellow group members as from the group's leadership, with a degree of credibility which is acceptable.

Groups work because human beings have the capacity to process information, to learn from experience and example. Above all, they work because they have some success in allaying suspicion of new and different ideas, in overcoming resistance and anxiety about alternative ways of behaving, and by providing support and understanding from others with similar experiences, difficulties, dilemmas and problems but having different methods of coping. What gives a member of a friendship group the sense of being accepted and able to relax in the company of peers is the same factor which can give the individual member of a group the sense of being freer and well enough supported to try out new, different and potentially more effective ways of thinking and of behaving.

If the group is concerned with increasing the power of its members to pursue their legitimate ends, then the value of numbers is paramount, with the qualification that those numbers, to achieve the best results, should be composed of individuals who are personally involved in achieving those ends and who thus have some considerable degree of commitment to gaining them through the medium of the group. In a sense this success occurs from the realization that there are many tasks which are much more readily achievable with the concerned help of others than can be achieved by individuals acting alone.

If a group is concerned to give support to its members, then once again similar experience in those who form it means that at the very least the members can begin to realize that they are not alone with their problem, whatever it might be. But over and beyond this is the fact that contact with others who have also struggled to deal with similar problems brings the possibility of ideas of new and different approaches in how to cope, as well as the emotional support of being understood in a practical way.

When groups are formed on the basis of some degree of compulsion for those whose behaviour can be described as a matter of public concern, the effectiveness of the groups in question becomes more a matter of how well the group leadership can deal with the resentment and lack of co-operation and commitment which it is highly probable exists in the members. More...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I How Groups Work
• Part II Basic Groupwork
• Further Reading and References
• Index