Basic procedures t group. History of t-groups. Theoretical foundations for organizing and conducting group training

Edition: Group Psychological Training: Textbook

Chapter 1.

Theoretical foundations for organizing and conducting group training

The group as an object and subject of psychological theory and practice

Group one of the central concepts social psychology. As an object and subject of study, it attracted the attention of many well-known scientists and practitioners, but the most active studies of this phenomenon began to be carried out in the second half of the 20th century. In the same period, in the applied and practical areas of psychology, the concept of training.

As a way of psychological assistance to people, group training was first used in foreign psychology. The main idea formulated by K. Levin sounded like this: “In order to identify their inadequate attitudes and develop new forms of behavior, people must learn to see themselves as others see them” (Lewin, 1951).

The first training group (T-group) was formed by several natural scientists (Leland Bradford, Ronald Lippitt, Kurt Lewin) who brought together in 1946 business people and businessmen to study basic social laws (for example, the law of employment) , searching for optimal solutions and "playing" various situations associated with their application. In addition to the tasks set, each of them gained here the experience of self-disclosure and self-awareness with the help of receiving feedback. In 1947, the National Training Laboratory (NLT) was already established in Bethel, Maine. These first training groups were called "basic skills training groups". The main tasks of T-groups included teaching its members the basic laws of interpersonal communication, the ability to lead and make the right decisions in difficult situations. Later, such groups began to be differentiated by tasks and divided into certain categories:

1. groups of skills (training of managers, business people);
2. groups of interpersonal relations (problems of family, sex);
3. groups of "sensitivity" (groups focused on the growth and self-improvement of the individual, overcoming indecision, etc.).

But still enough long time such groups were still focused on learning healthy people various role functions:

• communication with superiors and subordinates;
• development of optimal solutions in difficult situations;
• search for methods to improve organizational activities, etc.

Any human group reflects the real world, the relationships that exist in the lives of ordinary people. However, this artificially created laboratory differs from the real world in the following ways:

• here everyone can be both an experimenter and a subject of experiment;
• here it is possible to solve problems that are unsolvable in real life;
• group activities involve "psychological safety", which ensures the "purity" of the experiment.

Well-known specialists in the field of psychological practice write that the main difference between the T-group and other types of groups is that it teaches how to learn. Here, all members of the group are involved in the overall process of mutual learning, and therefore they rely more on each other than on the leader. In the T-group, learning is more the result of the experience of the group itself, rather than the explanations and recommendations of the leader.

Another essential side of the T-group is related to the nature of the process itself, which involves such elements as:

• self-representation;
• Feedback;
• experimentation ( Kondrashenko V. T., Donskoy D. I., 1993, p. 388).

Among the most striking works related to group psychology and the use of the "group effect" as a special means of influencing the personality, most often include the works A. Adler, K. Levin, J. Moreno, J. Pratt, C. Rogers.

It can be said that in the domestic practice of psychological assistance, the group, as a means of professional influence on a person, has been used since the beginning of the 20th century. But an active scientific and practical interest in the methods of group work began to manifest itself especially clearly in Russia only in the 90s. the same century. The pioneer in the theoretical and methodological analysis of the problems of group work in Russia can be called Larisa Andreevna Petrovskaya, whose monograph was published back in 1982 ( Petrovskaya L. A., 1982; Petrovskaya L.A., 1989). In her work, she considers training(more precisely, socio-psychological training - SPT) as a peculiar form of teaching knowledge and individual skills in the field of communication, as well as an appropriate form of their correction. She divides the whole variety of these forms into two large classes:

1. focused on the development of special skills;
2. aimed at deepening the experience of analyzing situations of communication.

Naturally, a significant number of domestic training schools are based on theoretical concepts that have come to us from the West, and the forms of group psychological work themselves in most cases are still modifications of foreign models. At the same time, we note that recently world-class specialists have appeared in our country, from whom Western psychologists could learn.

The essence of group psychological training

Leading experts in the field agree that when we talk about training, we are talking about efficient way, with the help of which the actual impact on the personality as a whole and, above all, on certain components of its self-consciousness, is carried out. In particular, such a position is presented by V. T. Kondrashenko and D. I. Donskoy when disclosing the main stages of work in the T-group ( Kondrashenko V. T., Donskoy D. I., 1993, p. 388).

The attractiveness and active enthusiasm and use of training in working with people are associated with a number of its specific properties.

In particular, one of the well-known experts in the field of applying group methods of working with people, Kjell Rudestam, notes the following advantages of this method of solving psychological problems:

1. the opportunity to receive feedback and support from people who have common problems or experiences with a particular group member;
2. here there is an acceptance of the values ​​and needs of other people;
3. in a group, a person feels accepted and accepting, trusted and trusting, surrounded by care and caring, receiving help and helping;
4. observing the interactions taking place in the group, participants can identify themselves with others and use the established emotional connection in assessing their own feelings and behavior;
5. the group can facilitate the process of self-exploration and introspection, self-disclosure;
6. the group provides economic advantages, as a method of psychological assistance, it is economically more accessible to people (Rudestam K., 1993.).

Despite the variety of specific methodological approaches to group training, one can single out the main idea that unites them: with the help of the group, open up new opportunities in the development of the individual, discover and actualize its potential. At the same time, each specialist in this field focuses on one or another aspect of this work. As an example, we give several different points of view of domestic specialists.

1. One of the “pioneers” of using active methods in teaching, Yu. N. Emelyanov, believes that “the term “training” should be used not to refer to teaching methods, but to refer to methods for developing the ability to learn or master any complex activity, in particular communication. Following this approach, he proposes to clearly separate the educational aspect from the training aspect in the work of the group ( Emelyanov Yu. N., 1985).
2. Zhukov Yu. M., Petrovskaya L. A., Rastyannikov P. V. believe that the entire training course and each individual lesson can be considered as a situation of influence. In their opinion, the methods of influence are directly focused on interfering in the development of a group or personality in order to cause certain changes ( Zhukov Yu. M., Petrovskaya L. A., Rastyannikov P. V., 1990).
3. Zaitseva T.V., based on the provisions of the cultural-historical theory of P.S. Vygotsky, writes about the essence of psychological training as an instrumental mediating action that provides training participants with tools and techniques that allow them to actively master their behavior, rebuild unproductive structures of activity and thereby raise the regulation of behavior to a higher level. This weapon is used to learn new or change old behavior ( Zaitseva T. V., 2002).
4. A specialist in training for adolescents, A. G. Leaders, uses the term “group psychological work” to designate several fundamentally different modes of psychological work with a group: group psychotherapy, group psychological training, and group personal training. Analyzing the common and different in each of them, he uses criteria such as goal, principles for selecting participants, the main metaphor of the mode of work, criteria for the success of work (Liders A. G., 2001). Makshanov S. I. considers training as a multifunctional method of deliberate changes in the psychological phenomena of a person, group and organization in order to harmonize the professional and personal being of a person ( Makshanov S. I., 1997).
5. Sitnikov A.P. believes that trainings (learning games) are synthetic anthropotechnics, combining educational and game activities, taking place in the conditions of modeling various game situations. Under anthropotechnics he understands a certain component of acmeological practice, which is aimed at transforming “naturally given human abilities” (M. K. Mamardashvili) and forming a cultural phenomenon based on them professional excellence. He distinguishes three main anthropotechniques: learning, learning and play ( Sitnikov A.P., 1996).
6. The analysis carried out by I.V. Vachkov made it possible to single out a number of essential characteristics of the training. In particular:
   • training groups are specially created small groups, whose participants, with the assistance of a leading psychologist, are included in intensive communication aimed at helping everyone in resolving various psychological problems and in self-improvement (in particular, in the development of self-awareness);
   • training - a method of work of a psychologist with a client, when the client does what he came to train. The general working definition of training here is as follows.

Group psychological training is a set of active methods practical psychology which are used to form the skills of self-knowledge and self-development. At the same time, the author notes that training methods can be used both in the framework of clinical psychotherapy in the treatment of neurosis, alcoholism and a number of somatic diseases, and in working with mentally healthy people who have psychological problems, in order to assist them in self-development (Vachkov I.V., 2000).

Another vision of the essence of group training is presented in the works of M. R. Bityanova. In particular, she highlights the following essential characteristics of this type of work of a practical psychologist.

Psychological training- not any form of group work, it is a special form of group work with its own possibilities, limitations, rules and problems. At its core, training is a form of learning, acquiring new skills, discovering other psychological possibilities in oneself. The peculiarity of this form of education is that the student takes an active position in it, and the assimilation of skills occurs in the process of living, personal experience behavior, feelings, actions.

Psychological training is a form of active learning that allows a person to “self-form” (the word is clumsy, but very true in essence) the skills and abilities to build social interpersonal relationships, productive educational and other activities, analyze emerging situations from their own point of view and from the position of a partner, develop in the ability to know and understand oneself and others in the process of communication and activity ( Bityanova M. R., 2004).

Training sessions in educational activities (at school, college, university) - a significant modification of the training methodology and procedures so that the training can be used:

1. for the entire study group;
2. without fail;
3. in the mode of short meetings once a week;
4. in a situation of rather low psychological safety, typical for educational institutions ( Bityanova M. R., 2004).

Finishing the review of different points of view on understanding the essence of training, let's pay attention to one more point of view, which gives the most general definition of this concept. Solving the problems of ethnic tolerance and, in this context, the organization of methods and conditions for working with the training group, Lebedeva N. M., Luneva O. V., Stefanenko T. G. consider training as specially organized group work aimed at achieving a specific goal (Lebedeva N. M., Luneva O. V., Stefanenko T. G., 2004).

A generalization of the points of view and definitions described above allows us to give the following characterization of this type of work of a practical psychologist.

training(from English train - to train) - in the very general meaning considered as a way, more precisely, a set various tricks and methods aimed at developing a person's certain skills and abilities. As one of the tools of a psychologist, it can be used in individual and group work. But this method of influence gained the greatest popularity in working with a group.

Group therapy, correction, education and group training: their similarities and differences

For a deeper understanding of the essence and specifics of group training, it is important to show the nature of its differences from other ways of working as a practicing psychologist.

According to I. V. Vachkov, the main difference between group psychological training and therapy, correction and training is as follows.

“Both in group psychological training and in group psychotherapy, the same procedures are quite often used. In fact, it can be argued that training is one of the methods used in psychotherapy (as, indeed, in psychocorrection and training). At the same time, in our opinion, it is justified to isolate group psychological training from a number of other methods of work of a psychologist (psychotherapist) as a completely independent direction. This is due to the existence of important differences between group psychological training and therapy, correction and training.

First, in contrast to psychotherapy, the goals of training work are not related to treatment. The trainer is focused on providing psychological help, not for healing effects. This provision, of course, does not exclude the possibility of applying health procedures. Not only actually healthy people can participate in the training, but also neurotics and people with a borderline mental state. In the latter case, a practical psychologist (who does not medical education) is recommended to work with a clinical psychotherapist.

Secondly, the training pays attention not so much to the discrete characteristics of the inner world, individual psychological structures, as to the formation skills of self-development of the personality as a whole. In addition, the correction is directly related to the concept of the norm. mental development, which she focuses on, while in some types of training the category of the norm is not accepted at all.

Thirdly, training work cannot be reduced only to training, because the cognitive component is not always the main one in training and may sometimes be absent altogether. A number of experts consider the most valuable for the participants of the training to receive, first of all, emotional experience. However, psychological training is very closely related to developmental education, understood in the broadest sense of the word.

With all this, psychotherapeutic, corrective and educational methods can be used in the training, which in a number of cases does not allow one to unambiguously determine the form of group work "( Vachkov I. V., 2000).

Trying to determine the place of training among other types of work of a practical psychologist, he singled out, in terms of client requests (child and adult), four main goals of practical psychological activity and, accordingly, four ways to achieve them, which can be designated as metamethods of the psychologist's activity:

1. informing;
2. counseling;
3. intervention;
4. training.

The first three meta-methods of psychological work are ways to solve the client's actual problems and (usually) do not pretend to be more. As for the fourth meta-method, training, its fundamental difference from the others lies in the fact that it is aimed not only at solving the current problems of the participants, but also at preventing their occurrence in the future, in particular, due to the opportunity provided to them to learn how to solve problems ( Vachkov I.V., 2000).

"Encounter group" is a recent empirical group term coined by Carl Rogers in the 60s. The most common previous term was "T-group" ("T" stands for training - training in human relations). The first T-group, the progenitor of modern empirical groups, was held in 1946.

First T - group

In 1946, Frank Simpson, executive director of the Connecticut Interethnic Commission, which was formed to oversee the implementation of the new Non-Discrimination Employment Act, asked Kurt Lewin to help train leaders to deal effectively with intergroup tensions. Kurt Lewin was at the time director of the Public Affairs Commission, commissioned by the Congress of American Jews, and at the same time director of the new group dynamics research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Simpson needed help in training a wide range of public figures - businessmen, labor leaders, school teachers - to more effectively resolve interracial conflicts, as well as use his knowledge in changing racial attitudes towards other peoples.

In June 1946, in New Britain, Connecticut, Kurt Lewin organized a symposium in which three leaders, Leland Bradford, Kenneth Benn, and Ronald Lippit - all destined to make a big impact in the nascent field of human relations education - led groups of 10 people. in each. Kurt Lewin led a small group of social psychologists who studied the process and results of the conference experience. Groups, small in composition, were conducted in the traditional manner; in them, in essence, there were discussions of "domestic" problems presented by the participants. In some cases, in order to diagnose the behavioral aspects of problems, the technique of role-playing games was used.

Each of the small groups had an observer whose task it was to record and code behavioral interactions and their consequences. Evening meetings were held for facilitators and observer-researchers, where all collected information about the behavior of facilitators, participants and groups was brought together. The group members soon became aware of these meetings and asked to be allowed to join them. Levin agreed, but other employees were at first unenthusiastic about the fact that the participants would listen to private discussions; they feared that their professional incompetence would be discovered and, moreover, they were absolutely unsure of the effect that comments on their behavior would have on the participants. In the end, they decided to hold open meetings as an experiment. The observers who described this process all spoke of the amazing effect of what was happening on both participants and employees. There was something exhilarating about being present at a deep discussion about one's behavior. Soon the form of the evening meetings was extended to allow the discussants to respond to remarks, and some time later all parties were involved in the analysis and interpretation of their interactions. Many such evenings passed, all participants were invited to meetings that lasted about 3 hours; there was a widespread belief that this helped group members to understand their behavior in a new and more complete way. Employees very soon realized that they had discovered a powerful technique in teaching human relations - experiential learning. Group members learn most effectively by exploring the very network of relationships in which they are involved. They benefit greatly from being confronted on the spot with ordinary observations, at the same time as observing their own behavior and its effect on others; they can learn about the style of their interpersonal relationships, about the reactions of others, and about group behavior and development in general.

Significant changes have taken place since the emergence of the T-group as a learning technique. This process can be fully understood if we first step back further to consider why Kurt Lewin was asked to perform this task, as well as the reasons for his consent.

Influence of Kurt Lewin

Although he passed away just a few months after the Connecticut Experiment, through his students and ideas, he was able to make a great contribution to the future development of the T-group and the field of human relations. Lewin, a German psychologist famous for his theoretical work, visited America with a series of lectures before the outbreak of World War II. Having traveled outside of Germany, he became more aware of the impending threat of Nazism and, having fled his country with his family, took American citizenship. He was briefly invited to work at Harvard, and while there lectured at Springfield College, where he met Lawrence Hall, who taught a course in group work and helped Levin get his first introduction to small groups. (During this period Levin was also in close contact with Samuel Slavson, one of the pioneers of the group therapy movement.) When, some time later, Levin accepted a professorship at the University of Iowa, he was joined by Ronald Lippitt, one of Hall's students whose main area of ​​interest was small groups.

As Lewin's interest in group dynamics (a term coined by himself) grew, he began to pay more and more attention to behavior change. A significant stimulus to the choice of direction of activity for him was the observation of Nazi Germany, which aroused a deep interest in such problems as the re-education of Nazi youth and the change of anti-Semitic views. His interest in the influence of the atmosphere in society on the position of individuals led him to such studies as the classic experiment with Lippitt and White with the influence of three types of leadership: authoritarian, democratic, and permissive. During the war, he studied ways to change attitudes towards food and tried, through group methods, to convince people to increase their consumption of available foods such as brains and kidneys. He became interested in re-educating individuals who were inefficient, authoritarian group leaders, for example, in order to teach them to perform tasks more effectively. Although Lewin realized that such retraining could result in extensive characterological changes, he never explored this possibility; just as he did not attach serious importance to the fact that authoritarian character traits could be formed in early childhood and, because of this, resist, not give in to correction. Toward the end of his career, Levin and his students moved to MIT, where he headed Research Center group dynamics. After his death, many of his students, including prominent contemporary social psychologists, chose to work at the Institute for the Study of Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan.

Lewin's work led him to several conclusions about changes in behavior, which were used in the Connecticut laboratory. He believed that strong beliefs can only change if the individual is able to examine them personally and conclude that they are untenable. Therefore, methods of changing attitudes, or retraining, become effective when students discover the destructive effect of habitual behavior on themselves and on others. Thus, they need to be helped to see themselves from the outside. Only when the individual himself discloses these facts can he change his attitudes and subsequent behavior. As Levin explained, “results appear when the facts and events of life become really their facts. The individual will believe the facts he himself has discovered, to the same extent that he believes himself.

Lewin's commitment to both action and research, as well as the principle "No research without action, no action without study," left an imprint on the entire subsequent development of T - groups. From the very beginning, as was the case in the Connecticut lab, the study merged into a T-group structure. I am not only talking about outer learning, but learning from the facilitator; he and the members of the group are collaborating on a scientific development, the purpose of which is to enable everyone to experience, understand and change their behavior. This quality, in conjunction with the concept of the T-group as an educational technique, plays an essential role, which we will briefly show later, in differentiating the T-group from group therapy. However, these principles were abandoned in the subsequent transformation of the T-group into a meeting group.

The first training group (T-group) arose by chance. Several natural scientists (Leland Bradford, Ronald Leeppitt, Kurt Lewin) created a group of business people and businessmen in 1946, the purpose of which was to jointly study basic social laws (for example, the law of employment) and "play" various situations related to their use. In addition to developing optimal solutions and behaviors related to the application of laws, this group carried the first experience of self-disclosure and self-awareness through feedback.

Groups quickly gained popularity as a new effective teaching method, and already in next year in Bethel, Maine, a National Training Laboratory (NLT) was established. The main tasks of T-groups, or, as they were then called, “basic skills training groups”, were to teach its participants the basic laws of interpersonal communication, the ability to lead and make the right decisions in difficult situations. Naturally, such groups were not therapeutically oriented at first.

Later, T-groups, according to their intended purpose, began to be divided into groups of skills (training of managers, business people), groups of interpersonal relations (problems of family, sex) and “sensitivity” groups (groups focused on personal growth and self-improvement, overcoming indecision, etc.). P.). Nevertheless, the emphasis in T-groups for a long time was on teaching healthy people such role functions as communication with superiors and subordinates, developing optimal solutions in difficult situations, searching for methods to improve organizational performance, etc. (Shein, Bennis, 1965 ).

The founders of T-groups saw the following positive beginnings at the heart of their, as they believed, teaching method:

Application of social sciences (psychology, sociology) in practical life;

Focus on democratic (as opposed to authoritarian) teaching methods;

The ability in the learning process to establish relationships of mutual understanding and mutual assistance, the willingness to delve into the problems of any member of the group.

The group is the real world in miniature. It has the same problems as "in life", problems of interpersonal relations, behavior , decision-making, etc. However, this artificially created laboratory differs from the real world in that:

In the T-group, everyone can be both an experimenter and a subject of an experiment;

Here it is possible to solve problems that are unsolvable in real life;

Classes in a group suggest "psychological safety", which ensures the "purity" of the experiment.

The closer the tasks of the T-group are to solving issues of personal growth, interpersonal relationships, and the more successfully authoritarian methods of leadership are replaced by non-authoritarian, democratic ones, the more the T-group (especially its sensitive type) approaches the meeting group. Sometimes the boundaries between these groups are completely erased.

T-groups differ from encounter groups primarily in that in a t-group the emphasis is on the learning process of learning participants. Thus, learning is more the result of the experience of the group itself, rather than the explanations and recommendations of the leader. In addition, in t-groups, the improvement of the individual and the analysis of the development of the group are important, i.e. what happens in a group as it goes through its stages of development.

The main goal of the t-group is to improve interpersonal communication skills and the desire to transfer the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities into real life.

The main features of the t-group:

1. Help participants to understand whether the changes taking place in the group and in themselves can help them feel better in communication with other people;

2. Allows its participants to increase the level of competence in interpersonal communication. Participants are shown that each member of the group who helps to learn is a teacher;

3. The principle of "here and now."

Learning how to learn involves the following steps:

Presentation of oneself. Presenting oneself is a process of self-disclosure. The most effective self-disclosure model is the Jogari Window, named after its inventors Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram.

In accordance with the Jogari model, one can imagine that each person contains four zones of personality: the “arena”, “visible”, “blind spot” and “unknown”.

"Arena" is our area I, which I know and others know. This is the "space" of the individual, open to me and to others.

"Visible"- this is what I know about myself, but others do not (love story, Rice. twenty."Window Jogari" fear of the boss, etc.).

« blind spot» - this is what others know about me, but I don’t (the habit of interrupting the speaker, etc.).

"Unknown"- this is what is hidden from me and from others. This also includes the hidden potentials of any personality. Conventionally, this zone coincides with the zone of the unconscious.

The "Jogari Window" clearly shows that expanding contacts means, first of all, expanding the "arena". When members of any group meet for the first time, the "arena" is usually small. As mutual understanding grows in the group, trust in partners increases, the degree of self-disclosure increases, and the “arena” of each of its participants expands.

If the group fails to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding, and the level of trust in each other is quite low, then the effect of such a group on its members is low.

Feedback. Feedback is carried out in those cases when some members of the group report their reactions to the behavior of others in order to correct the "course" of their behavior. In turn, participants who have received such a “signal” from others have the opportunity to correct their behavior.

Feedback in an atmosphere of sincerity and mutual trust gives individual members of the group information about their "blind spots", provides a better understanding of the essence of the group process by all participants.

It is better when the feedback is manifested by an emotional reaction to the behavior of the partner, and not by criticism and evaluation of the Partner himself and his behavior.

The corrective effect of feedback is all the more effective, the more unanimous the group members are in their assessment of the behavior of one of the partners.

Experimentation. Group experimentation is based on the active search for different behaviors in the same (or different) situations.

Such a search can only be successful if the experimenting participants can receive clear and precise feedback from the group without fear of the consequences of their behavior in any given situation.

An important condition for the work of the group is to focus on the principle here and now. This principle is relevant for all types of educational and treatment groups. All reactions should come from a specific situation, and not be in the nature of a narrative or edification. The main outcome of the group process is attention to direct experience and specific sensations.

The role of the leader in T-groups is to involve the participants in a joint work on the study of their relationships and behavior, organize the group process, and then quietly withdraw from directive leadership.

The main mistake of most leaders is the desire to actively engage in the group process, to "pull" the group out of an impasse. In fact, such actions of the leader only prevent the group from realizing its reserve capabilities. In fact, such actions of the leader only prevent the group from realizing its reserve capabilities.

In cases where work in the T-group is limited in time, the role of the mentor also changes. The leader of such a "short-term" group should be more active, confront the participants more often, and provide feedback.

A T-group with a shortened duration is most often "structured". In such a group, the leader sets the tone for the classes (gives a specific task, forms the situation), and the group develops its own solution. “Planned action” has proven itself well in solving various kinds of conflict situations.

The opposite of a "structured" group is the so-called Tavistock group model. It was proposed by Wilfrid Bayon in 1959, and the name of the group comes from the Tavistock Clinic and the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations in London, where Bayon was researching the so-called "small study groups".

The focus of these groups is on individual development and the uniqueness of each individual. In the Tavistock group, it is assumed that the statements of one participant and his behavior reflected in the group mirror are shared by other participants, and the group itself behaves as an interconnected system in which the whole turns out to be something more than the sum of its parts. The leader in Bayon's Tavistock group is given a passive role. While the members of the group explore their own behavior, the leader of the group remains in the background.

Group process

Kelman (1963) considers group psychotherapy as a "situation of social influence", and in the group process I will distinguish three stages: compliance; identification; assignment.

According to Kelman, members of a psychotherapeutic group are, firstly, subject to the influence of the psychotherapist and other members of the group; secondly, they identify with the psychotherapist and with each other; thirdly, they appropriate group experience. Kelman believes that in order to achieve a therapeutic effect, it is not enough to “compliance with the norms and rules of the group - it is also necessary to assimilate what has been learned and master it. Group members must learn new feeling skills (pliability), respond to them on the group (identification ) and apply to specific real life situations (application).

The psycho-correctional group from the moment of its creation to the completion of the treatment process goes through several stages of its development.

Most researchers of this issue come to the conclusion that the group process, starting from the stage of adaptation, across resolution within group conflicts(second stage) comes eventually to cohesion and effective problem solving(Tuckman, 1965; Bennis and Shepard, 1974; etc.).

Kratochvil (1978) distinguishes four phases of group development.

First phase(orientation and dependence). There is an adaptation to new people and orientation: “What kind of treatment is this?”, “What are we going to do?”, “How will this help me?” Group members are anxious, insecure, dependent. Some withdraw into themselves, others talk about their illnesses, but at the same time everyone is waiting for information and instructions from a psychotherapist.

Second phase(conflicts and protest). There is a tendency to self-affirmation, the distribution of roles begins: active and passive, leading and "oppressed", "favorites" and "unloved ones", etc. Dissatisfaction arises both with each other and with the psychotherapist, and as a result - disappointment in the method itself treatment.

If at the first stage of the formation of the group the psychotherapist was an idol for all members of the group, now he is being thrown off the pedestal, reduced to the level of "an idler and a charlatan". Dissatisfaction with the psychotherapist is further enhanced if he refuses a leading, authoritarian role. Emotionally stressful intensity reaches its climax: the patient's discussions turn into a "comradely court", a conversation with a psychotherapist - into a conflict. If the psychotherapist is not experienced enough, then the collapse of the group is possible at this phase.

Third phase(development and cooperation). Emotional tension is reduced, the number and severity of conflicts are reduced. Group norms and values ​​are being consolidated. The struggle for leadership recedes into the background. There is a need for belonging to a group, a sense of responsibility for common interests becomes relevant. Mutual understanding, sincerity, intimacy are born between members of the group. Dialogues become more frank and trusting. The individual develops a sense of security, the confidence that the group will protect him. There is a desire to open up, relations with a psychotherapist normalize.

Fourth phase(purposeful activity). The group becomes a working team, mature social system. Its members reflect, consult, make decisions. Positive feedback is being established, which is not violated even in cases where negative emotions and conflicts are deliberately allowed to be discussed.

In domestic psychotherapy, it is customary to single out adaptive, frustrating, constructive And implementation phase group speaker. In principle, this dynamics is no different from the dynamics described by Rogers, Kratochvil et al.

SPT methods

Item History

(Kyel Rudestam "Group Psychotherapy")

Basic concepts:

Training: ( Dictionary of Petrovsky, Yaroshevsky, 1990) is a field of practical psychology focused on the use active group methods psychological work for the purpose development of competence in communication.

Petrovskaya L. A. (1982) is a means of mental impact aimed at development knowledge, social attitudes, skills and experience in the field interpersonal communication.

Keywords:

Group - The community allocated to based on. signs

Communication - the process of establishing and developing contacts between people, generated by the needs of joint activities.

Technology- (art, craft) - a set of means and methods for achieving results, a set of knowledge about the methods and means of carrying out processes.

The first examples of group work in the 19th century (experiments of Mesmer.). Group influence (suggestion) on mentally ill people led to + results. Pratt - work with tuberculosis patients, 2nd World War- assistance to veterans

Works of Kurt Lewin in the middle of the 20th century (work with a group of managers).

Its main idea is that a person (I) becomes a person only in a human community. It is communication with other people according to K. Levin that forms a person. (Me and Others). How a person's personality is formed in a social situation of development.

The sequence of stages of human development:

Individual (as a representative of the genus) - personality - individuality.

The method of psychological assistance to people, implemented through small group(psychotherapeutic or psychocorrectional), proved to be extremely effective and therefore acquired the status of one of the most popular.

With a huge variety of schools and areas, we can talk about the presence key and leading idea, which combines almost all approaches available in practical psychology:

the desire to help the development of the individual by removing restrictions, complexes, releasing its potential;

This is the idea of ​​change, the transformation of the human Self in a changing world. (I. Vachkov)

In other words, it is about the actual impact into various components self-awareness which is carried out in all types of medical psychotherapy and in all types of group and psycho-correctional work , even in those where such a task is of secondary importance or is not set at all and is not realized.

T-groups

1946 - the birth of groups. Works. Students of K. Levin in Bethel (USA). Lippit set up a scientific training laboratory and conducted seminars. The training offered a wide range of teaching methods aimed at developing communication skills and learning about processes in small groups. In some groups, attention was paid to sensitivity and the processes of comprehensive development of the personality. Managers and politicians were trained in T-groups.

K. Levin proposed the main values: Democracy, Mutual assistance, Awareness, Choice when meeting with problems.

Goals: master communication and management skills, learn how to resolve conflicts.

Basic concepts of T-groups:

1. Teaching laboratory, i.e., testing new ways of behaving.

2. Learn to learn. Uncertainty, spirit of exploration, the need for openness and sincerity, self-presentation, coaching tips.

3. Experimentation. Johari window. It takes a lot of energy to hide information from yourself and others.

Basic procedures:

1. Description of behavior. 2. Transfer of feelings. 3. Active listening. 4. Confrontation.

What contributes to a productive confrontation?

· The trainer shows a positive attitude towards the participants and a readiness for even closer relationships.

Requests and suggestions, not demands (horizontal relationships).

· T. describes behavior rather than ascribes motives.

The role of T. is diverse: mother-hen, Exemplary father, Holy prophet, Mephistopheles the tempter.

Criticism: It is not entirely clear how the group arrives at behavior change.

The T-group movement was initiated by the research of the prominent social psychologist of the 1930s, Kurt Lewin. Lenin came to the firm conviction that most effective changes in personality attitudes take place in a group context, not in an individual context. He argued that in order to identify and change their maladaptive attitudes and develop new forms of behavior, people must learn to see themselves as they see them. other. K. Levin came to the conclusion that people in a group constantly influence each other. The bands quickly gained popularity as Ionic effective method training, and the main tasks of the Training Groups, or basic skills training groups, were to teach participants the basic laws of interpersonal communication, the ability to lead and make the right decisions in difficult situations 107 .

The main goals of T-groups include the following: I) the development of self-knowledge by lowering the barriers of psychological defense and eliminating insincerity at the personal level; 2) understanding the conditions that make it difficult or easier for the group to function (such as the size of the Group and membership); 3) comprehension of interpersonal relations in a group, for example, improving communication skills for more effective interaction with others;

4) mastering the skills of diagnosing individual, group and organizational problems, for example, resolving conflict situations in a group and strengthening group cohesion.

Turning to the basic concepts of T-groups, it should be noted that they primarily include the concept "Teaching Lab" At the same time, the emphasis is on experimentation and testing of new forms of behavior. K. Rudestam notes that a member of the group is both a participant who can experiment with behavior changes and an observer who can control the result of these changes. Participants are directly involved in setting group goals, observing behavior, planning actions, and analyzing data 108 .

The difference is that the T-group provides an opportunity for solving problems that are not always solvable in real life. Often laboratory meetings take place in a setting quite far from Everyday life. These meetings may occur once every few days or even weeks. Classes in T-groups usually take up only a fraction of the time of laboratory training. The rest of the schedule may include lectures giving information about group skills and group skills! processes, and meetings in a wider circle.

The specificity of T-groups lies in the fact that participants within a limited period of time must create a social organization and support its development. The goals are quite general and vague. Thus, the rejection of a clear structure and plan forces participants to rely on themselves and develop their own capabilities.

The main thing for the T-group is learning about the processes taking place in the group as it develops and changes.

Much attention in T-groups is paid to another concept - "learning how to learn."

Teaching how to learn relies on a learning cycle consisting of representation of oneself- feedback -and experimentation.

Presentation of oneself. Throughout the development of the group, its participants reveal their perception of the action, which is called representation of oneself.

A way of describing the representation of oneself and the complicity of others in this process of perception and cognition is to use a simple disclosure model called the "Jogary Window" after its inventors Joseph Laft and Harry Ingram 109 .

In accordance with this model, one can imagine that each person carries within himself, as it were, four "spaces" of his personality:

1. "Arena" covers general knowledge, those aspects of the content of (one's) "I" that we and others know about (the "space" of the personality, open to me and others).

2. "Appearance" is what we know and others don't, such as a secret love affair or an unspeakable fear of an authority figure, as well as what we have not been able to talk about, say, a good grade. in an exam (open to me, but closed to others).

3. "Blind Spot" consists of what others know about us,
and we don't know, such as bad breath or the habit of interrupting the speaker in the middle of a word (closed to me, but open to others).

4. "Unknown" is what is hidden both from us and from others, including hidden potential development opportunities (hidden and inaccessible neither to me nor to other people).

The Jogari Window shows that openness in relationships helps to solve group and individual problems, and that expanding contacts means expanding the Arena. When the band members first meet, Amnaet's "Arena" is small; with the development of mutual assistance relations, it reveals trust in partners, the ability to be with oneself in contacts with others develops. The degree of disclosure that a group can afford depends on the level of trust that exists within the group.

Feedback 110 . The second element of the learning cycle is the effective use of the feedback received from the group.

Those participants who want to expand their self-awareness could ut Get feedback on your behavior. Although feedback is provided in all interpersonal interactions, in the T-group, the ability to provide effective feedback is developed intentionally.

Feedback in an atmosphere of mutual care and trust allows individuals to control and correct inadequate behavior, provides information about "blind spots". Effective feedback requires participants to inform each other about the impact of their behavior, helps participants; better to receive and understand the information received.

In T-groups, the attention of clients is drawn to the development of effective feedback skills.

It is important that the feedback provider do so at the moment of observing the behavior, and not as time passes, when the partner can use psychological self-defense and the information becomes less relevant.

Useful feedback should be an expression
emotional reactions to the behavior of the participant, rather than criticism and evaluation of his behavior. In other words, the feedback provided by the participants reveals their own emotional experiences rather than a desire to blame.
another.

Feedback is most useful when it is representative and comes from the majority of participants. When feedback is offered by several members of a group, it is usually more valid and can have a greater impact on the behavior of other members than the response of one member.

Feedback can be optimally received by the participant who listens carefully and then puts what they hear in their own words (paraphrase). Given the perception of others, he can better learn to see how other members of the group reacted to his message, while at the same time recognizing that he should not change just because someone wants him to.

Experimentation 111 . The third important element of the training cycle is experimentation in the group - based on the active search for new strategies and behaviors. Group members learn not only through feedback, but also learn to use experience, conduct research and analyze experiences in situations where they can receive clear and accurate feedback on the appropriateness and effectiveness of their behavior. The practice of experimentation is very important because