RESISTANCE TO INTIMACY: AN EXPERIENTIAL METHOD FOR THE ILLUSTRATION OF GROUP DYNAMICS

                                        Alan Cartwright, Ph.D.

1.       INTRODUCTION

Fashion, economics, and occasionally well thought-out intervention plans have all contributed to the increased popularity of group work amongst helping professions.  Presently groups are conducted in many agencies and those professionals not utilising this approach often vaguely feel some sense of lack in their therapeutic repertoire.  However in spite of the growing popularity of group work many professional training courses restrict training opportunities to little more than the occasional lecture.  A marked contrast to the intensive course involving theory, supervised practice, and personal experience which are the requirements laid down by organisations which specialise in the training of group workers.

Consequently, many members of the helping professions are leading groups with little training in this field.  Often such leaders feel confused as they have little idea of what they are doing and rather than a realistic appraisal of what is possible or even necessary to achieve their goals with their client group, they are guided by vague fantasies around the notion of what happens in groups.  The anxiety thus provoked leads some to seek help in the form of intensive short-term training courses which invariably approach their subject matter through the use of experiential small groups.

A common problem in such groups concerns the problematic balance between "therapy" and "education".  The difficulty stems from the belief that the only way to understand (in contrast to explain) the processes which occur in small groups, and particularly the ways they affect individual participants is through the personal experience of being a member of such a group.  However, such groups have a marked tendency to become "therapeutic" rather than strictly "educational".  Thus members of the group often complain that they did not make a contract to come into personal therapy but rather came to learn more about how to use the group in their work situation.  Whilst one can attribute some of this response to anxieties and resistance amongst trainees it also has a fairly realistic vein; short-term groups of this nature can be a very powerful experience and may radically affect a person's whole life.

Whilst it is difficult to distinguish between education, which is defined in cognitive and behavioural terms, and therapy which tends to be defined in emotional terms, it does seem that there is a need to clearly define the purpose of small groups within the training situation.

Mostly the groups being run by helping professionals have as their goals general support and the development of inter-personal skills.  Rarely are the goals of the groups defined psychotherapeutically and indeed the use of psychotherapeutic approaches involving the uncovering of anxiety provoking experiences would at best be seen to be a distraction from the main purpose of the endeavour and at worst be a powerfully disruptive influence.

Yet paradoxically on the courses so often offered to group workers it is exactly this uncovering approach evolved from the training of group psychotherapists which tends to be modelled by leaders, often with little distinction between the education and therapeutic goals.  The approach described below is an attempt to resolve some of these contradictions and started from the question "what is it that the small group psycho-therapeutic experience can offer to the training of non-therapist group workers beyond self indulgence?"  The answer provided is that it can offer an understanding of the processes which will occur in any small group situation when anxiety provoking types of material are presented in the group context.  In order to illustrate this point, the group needs to provoke sufficient anxiety amongst participants for the phenomena to occur and yet as far as possible avoid becoming directly therapeutic.  The approach described in the remaining sections of this paper is an attempt to formulate such a group environment.

2.       INTIMACY AND RESISTING IN PSYCHOTHERAPY GROUPS

Freud used the analysis of the patient's attempts to resist moving into therapeutically necessary but anxiety provoking areas of experience as one of the defining criteria of psychoanalytic treatment.  Within psycho-analysis the term "resistance" is often used in a fashion which does not make it immediately apparent what it is that is being resisted; except the therapist's belief about the direction in which the patient should be moving.  However, it is quite possible to define a given goal for a group and analyses the group's activities in terms of their tendencies to resist movement into that particular area.  The suggested group format chooses as its goal "shared intimacy" between group members and illustrates various aspects of group process by interpreting the ways in which the group avoids intimacy.

"Intimacy" refers to one of those human experiences which elusively defy attempts to capture them through definition.  Essentially the problem is that the experience of "intimacy" is personal and subjective.

It is however an experience which is likely to occur when certain types of behaviour are apparent between two or more people.  Thus the pre-conditions for shared intimacy would appear to be that each person in the intimate situation is able to express their own most private thoughts and feelings and hear those of others present without anxiety.  Such intimacy would include not only the expression of sexual and aggressive feelings, feelings of envy, anxiety and joy, but also the expression of critical and moral judgements and desires to accept and reject.

The desire for intimacy whatever its genesis is one of the most powerful of all human desires and yet it is something to which most respond quite phobically.  Our reasons are comprehensible in terms of social contexts in which esteem is awarded according to the degree of fit with various vaguely specified idealised models of public behaviour.  Thus to maintain or develop esteem, from infancy onwards, we learn to select for public presentation only those of the multitude of experiences which we feel would lead to approval or safety.  Similarly we learn to hold back from our own conscious awareness as many as possible of those experiences which fail to fit with our own private views of ourselves.  What is selected or rejected, and how this occurs, will vary individually but the process of selecting and rejecting is present in each.

The various attempts to avoid intimacy are usually justified in terms of the feared consequences of intimate behaviour which include fears of pleasure of pain, grandiosity or vulnerability, losing control of oneself or being controlled by others, any of which may be accompanied by fears of shame or guilt.

It is because anxieties about intimacy tend to be shared by all to varying degrees that the group work procedures is able to utilise the ways in which the group resists the movement towards intimacy as a method for examining and demonstrating the various processes which occur in groups.  The approach used by the author is to set a focus for the group which is based on "a discussion of the members' emotional responses to their clients".  This subject matter often demands discussion of "unprofessional" thoughts and feelings and thrusts the group into the whole area of anxiety about intimacy.  In the following section some of the major ways in which intimacy is resisted is described and this is followed by a discussion of the role of the group leaders.

3.       COMMON WAYS OF RESISTING INTIMACY

Any activity on the part of group members which distracts the group or a member of the group from the avowed purpose is here defined as resisting.  However, in utilising such broad terminology it is not intended to imply that this is conscious behaviour or that its interpretation in terms of resisting is the only valid meaning for the behaviour in question.  In the context of this section all that is being implied is that one interpretation of the behaviour in question could be that it has the effect of facilitating the avoidance of intimacy.  The issues that need to be taken into account when choosing this rather than an alternative interpretation will be considered in the following section of the Role of the Group Leader.

In this section the various behaviours which may be resisted are considered under the headings of the objective discourse, overt avoidance, playing safe, distortions of leadership, distortions of membership, and silence.

(a)      The Objective Discourse

          We start with a consideration of the role of "objective discourse" in resistance to intimacy because one of the defining characteristics of the intimate group is the members' tendency to increase the proportion of subjective communications about themselves and others.  Thus any form of communication which encourages the person to suppress their feelings or view themselves objectively can be considered as an impediment to intimacy.

          This development can perhaps be illustrated by an experience which occurred in a recent group around the third session.  One group member shared with others the sense that "she was a fraud", that the sort of person she appeared to be was not the sort of person she actually was.  The responses that group members made to this communication can be classified to illustrate the main facets of the objective discourse.

          (i)      Reassurance

          Reassurance comes in many different forms but most of them have a similar implicit meaning:  "there is no need for you to feel the way you are because/if ..." .  A common form in which reassurance manifests itself in groups is that of "sharing";  "I used to feel the way you talk about, but now I have come to realise that that was a silly way of looking at things".  Another closely related phenomena is more direct;  "I don't feel that you are a fraud".  A further way in which reassurance can appear within the group situation is through the giving of advice;  by advising the other person what to do, you suggest that the reasons for their anxiety are likely to be groundless;  "If you look carefully at the way other people respond to you you will see that they don't think you are a fraud".

          Whilst any of the statements suggested above might in another context be considered as true objective statements, their validity is not what is at stake in the present situation.  The point being made is that by responding in this reassuring fashion the group members are stopping the deeper exploration of the feelings involved, that is they are preventing the development of a genuine intimacy; relating not as subject to subject, but as subject to object.

          (ii)     Questions and Answers

          Because of the complexity of human discourse asking for clarification of each other's utterances, has become central to most approaches to communication.  Yet a subtle variation of this legitimate procedure, that of questions and answers, can be a way in which intimacy is avoided.  Normally this takes the following type of format:-

                             Statement:    "I feel a fraud."

                             Respondent: "Why do you say that?"

                             Answer:                 "Because that's the way I feel."

                             Question:               "Doesn't everyone feel that way some of                          the time?"

                             Answer:                 "Perhaps, I don't know."

          This sequence by which an intimacy inviting statement is responded to through a series of questions demanding of answers is one clear way in which a group can distract a member who is making invitations to intimacy.  Usually as the process of questions and answers proceeds the degree of emotionality present in the original statement is markedly lessened as the participants become more and more engaged in an intellectual discussion of the issues involved.

          (iii)    The Empathetic Response

          Two major modes of objective discourse described above contain the underlying message that the person should stop feeling the way they are and start behaving differently.  By contrast the empathetic response is a clear indication that it is permissible to explore the area of concern more deeply.  Thus an empathetic response to the "fraud" statement described earlier would involve a reflection by the group of the statement made by the speaker.  Perhaps formulated as a question "you feel like a fraud".  The question in this case invited further subjective exploration.

          Empathetic response can go beyond a reflection of that which is consciously or publicly stated by the individual to include statements concerning unstated private feelings or unconscious experiences.  Thus to the fraud statement a response such as "it must be very painful to experience yourself as a fraud" invites an exploration of the emotions associated with the idea of being a fraud.  Of course there is always a danger that these sort of statements, which go beyond the available evidence, are more clearly statements about the respondent than the original speaker.  However, even if incorrect it is quite possible that they are genuine invitations to intimacy which go awry because they fail to show a genuine understanding of the speaker's position.

          The "objective discourse" has been selected as the first form of resistance to be described.  In the early stages of the group, it is the marked movement from objective to subjective discourse which is the key-note of the development of intimacy.  The refusal to leave the level of objective discourse (which of course is the most common form of communication between people) is however only one form that resistance to intimacy may take in the group.

(b)     Overt Avoidance

          Mentioning overt avoidance is really only necessary for the sake of completeness.  Common forms of overt avoidance are:  not attending the group; coming late to the group; or leaving the group while it is in progress.  Little further needs to be said about these obvious features because if the person is not attending the group they simply cannot take part in the intimate communication.

(c)     Playing Safe

          Group members may appear to be moving towards intimate communication whilst actually avoiding the anxieties involved by "playing safe".  There are various forms of playing safe:  socialising; playing group games; having nothing to say; changing the subject; and humour and linguistic avoidance.

          (i)      Socialising

          Although most group leaders express preference that members do not meet and discuss matters relevant to the group outside the working hours of the group, it is fairly common that members of groups, particularly residential groups, do exactly this.  Viewed superficially such meetings, often in the bar after the group, are only natural reflecting the greater intimacy of members, however they can also be viewed as resistive activities.  In the context of the informal social discussions between members material relevant to the group is often presented and expanded upon.  Thus members may share anxiety provoking thoughts and feelings with a selected "safe person", or with the group as a whole in a situation where the rules of "social behaviour" prevent the information being challenged.  Such quasi-intimate behaviour often causes sever conflicts for group members; the person who has done the sharing often feels relieved but has also drawn other group members into a conspiracy that the material in question should not be raised within the group.  Thus, later in the group a member may feel that it is important to make statements which are based on information gathered outside the group, but at the same time feel an obligation not to speak.

          (ii)     Playing Group Games

          There are a variety of "games" that group members can play which give the impression of intimate communication but actually function effectively to avoid intimacy.  It is useful to label games played by group members.  Very common ones are:-

          (a)      "Missing member", which allows the group to discuss for hours their feelings for someone who is not present and thus avoid discussing the feelings about those who are present.

          (b)     "Leadership", a very common game where professionals are members.  It involves challenging each other for leadership of the group.  Discussing these challenges to the leadership can totally pre-occupy a group and therefore avoid genuine intimacy.

          (c)     "Groupiness", is another common way of avoiding intimacy; here everyone has fun, expresses warmth, loving and caring feelings, in a highly ritualised fashion.

          (d)     Another common group game is "Honest anger" in which the person involved goes around expressing feelings of anger and hostility which has little bearing on the intimate behaviour of group members.

          Group games can have a surprising effect on some members because whilst they may be functioning to avoid intimate communication, they often are on a fairly close edge and the group may in fact accidentally break through into genuine intimacy from the group game.

          (iii)    Having Nothing to Say

          "Having nothing to say" is a way of playing safe.  The person involved will usually openly and "honestly" say that there is nothing going through their minds, they have got nothing to say, they are not anxious, and they are not worried.  Having nothing to say is the most "innocent" of ways of resisting the move towards intimacy.

          (iv)    Changing the Subject

          Groups can often veer away from potentially intimate situations through a subtle process of changing the subject.  Such moves may be fairly obvious as with the sort of comment "let's not talk about this"; although its purpose as the means of resistance to intimacy is not likely to be stated.  In contrast with the clarity of such simple changes in directions are the confusions which sometimes set in amongst group members.  These might have a slightly "manic" feel about them, or there may simply be a total confusion in which members do not seem to understand what they are saying or what they are talking about and embark upon a course of apparent free association. 

          One of the most common reasons for this sudden onset of confusion within the group situation is as a means of avoiding intimacy.  The confusion being a direct response to the underlying anxiety.  As long as the group remains confused the anxiety provoking issues cannot be faced.

          (v)     Humour

          One of the major functions that humour can provide in any situation is that of releasing tension.  Thus when the situation threatens to become intimate, the sudden emergence of humour or jokes can be perceived as a way of resisting the development of further intimacy.  Humour, like having fun can be fairly misleading because it often gives the impression of intimacy whilst actually facilitating its avoidance.

          (vi)    Linguistic Avoidance

          One way that society allows individuals to avoid taking personal responsibility for their own experiences is by allowing the use of collective pronouns such as "one"; "we"; "people"; "you"; when the personal pronouns "I"; or "me" would be more accurate.  A group leader can avoid much of this socially approved resistance to intimacy by insisting that personal form is always used unless it is "factually" correct to use the collective.  Thus a common form of statement "one/you always feel angry when x happens" is illegitimate and should be replaced by "I think people ....."; which can be explored with other members or "I always feel ....."; which is an intimate statement.

          Similar type rules can be applied to the passive verbs which are only allowed if factually correct.  Thus the word "can't" is illegitimate unless referring to a fact and is replaced by active forms such as "don't" and "won't".

(d)     Distorted Perceptions of Leadership

          As the communication between group members becomes more intimate then the forms of resistance to intimacy become less amenable to direct conscious examination.  Thus the forms of resistance we have been considering up to this point, could more clearly be seen as involving a distinction between the public activity of group members which involves an apparent desire to move towards greater intimacy, and the private perspective involving considerable anxiety about intimacy.  In this respect group members would easily be able to recognise and accept the ways that their behaviour is able to reduce anxiety which is privately experienced but publicly denied.  In the forms of resistance we are now going to discuss we are increasingly moving into areas where the resistance is itself unconscious, that is it would not be easily accepted by the individual or group even privately.

          The role of the leader described below is essentially one of a participant observer.  Generally speaking the leader's comments are limited to those which guide the group in a more intimate direction.  However, these comments are likely to be experienced as extremely anxiety provoking and the leader may be seen as the major source of threat within the group.  Consequently group members may attempt to control the leader's behaviour as a means of avoiding a deepening of intimacy.  Such a response may take a number for forms, the most common are:-  overt challenges to leadership; defensive hostility; and idealisation of the leader-ship.

          (i)      The Challenge to Leadership

          Most commonly the major challenges to leadership in a group comes from members who are most threatened by the growing intimacy.  The form of the challenge may be a direct request that the leader "stops the group behaving in the way they are and makes them behave as the challenger wants".  This tactic may be preceded or followed by an attempt by the challenger to directly control the direction the group takes.  For instance in a recent group a challenger stated that a subject chosen by group members for discussion was in fact chosen by the group leader and perhaps the subject should be changed to one which the group members wanted to discuss.

          (ii)     Defensive Hostility

          Defensive hostility involves the expression by the group members of hostile or critical feelings towards the group leader.  Often such feelings follow a failure to change the direction of the group by a challenge to leadership.  Invariably these feelings are expressed in a way that denies the legitimacy of the group leader's posture towards the group or a specific individual.  Defensive hostility often indicates extreme anxiety about the development of further intimacy.

          (iii)    The Idealisation of Leadership

          The attribution of unrealistic powers and insights to the group leader is another means by which the group may resist intimacy; by placing all the power on the leader the group invariably claims to be impotent and therefore powerless to develop further.  The leader that accepts this seductive position invariably finds themselves with a group that restricts its comments to the leader seeking approval and thereby working from a position which is the antithesis of intimacy.  Every attempt to generate spontaneous group activity would be likely to meet with a response indicating that the leader should "tell the group what to do", and mutual intimacy is avoided by directing all discourse to the leader.

(e)     Distorted Perception of Other Group Members

          Group members may avoid genuine intimacy by a selective channelling of thoughts and feelings away from themselves toward others.  We shall be discussing three major forms this resistance can take:  projections; scape-goating and projective identification.

          (i)      Projections

          A person may be described as acting projectively when they attribute to other individuals or to the group as a whole thoughts and feelings which belong to them but are being denied or avoided.  Thus a group member who feels angry themselves but is unwilling to intimately explore this experience may accuse the group or other people in the group of being angry.  Thereby facilitating a consideration of anger or even an expression of angry feelings of their own without the necessity of exploring their own anger in depth.  In the last resort, they can say that they are angry because of other's behaviour.  In one group a social worker angrily attacked another because of her "do gooder" attitudes.  Later she admitted that she was embarrassed about her own "do gooding" approach to social work which she considered unprofessional.

          A major form of projection can be manifested in the form of transference phenomena.  This refers to the tendency of a group member to react to other group members as if they were people from their own past lives.  The ways a member may relate to others in the group may involve the whole of that person's family constellation, some being approached as father, others as mother, some sisters or brothers.  In this particular format the group transferences are perceived as a form of resistance to intimacy.  The question that is to be raised is what is avoided by attributing these characteristics to other group members.  The goal of the group involves the illustration of the phenomena of transference not its working through and resolution.

          (ii)     Scape-Goating

          An important sub-group of projections are those referred to as scape-goating activities.  A group may move to attack one person for qualities that they themselves all possess but which they would prefer not to accept.  In the present type of group, scape-goating often occurs around the areas of sexuality and aggression in relationship to patients.  In one group a woman who was apparently kindly and warm in her working relationship with her patients, would use extremely evocative words to describe the general state of debilitation and low motivation of her particular client group.  The whole group rounded on her and started attacking her for her hostile and critical attitude towards her clients.  It however soon became apparent that by attacking this lady, group members successfully avoided looking at their own feelings in these particular areas which they considered to be unacceptable.

          (iii)    Projective Identifications

          In a way projective identifications operate in the reverse fashion to those activities associated with scape-goating.  The scape-goat is punished for the expression of feelings present in others but which are denied.  When projective identification is taking place, a single group member may be encouraged to express thoughts and feelings which all are experiencing but which most would prefer to deny.  As the group becomes more intimate in its communication, the level of anxiety is raised, the possibility that the anxiety will be reduced through projective identification becomes increasingly great.  Thus one group member might be encouraged to talk about rage and sexual feelings in an extremely intimate manner but in a fashion which does not involve others sharing similar feelings.  Very often, once a person has been adopted into this particular role within a group whenever tension rises because of threats associated with intimacy, other group members will encourage them to express feelings present in the majority of group members.

(f)      Silences

          For many people silences which occur in groups are their most memorable feature.  However, it would be a mistake to assume that all silences are similar.  Within the context of the present type of group, it is useful to consider three forms of silence:  defensive silence; the empathatic silence; and the working silence.

          (i)      The Defensive Silence

          Defensive silences usually occur in the early stages of a group or when particularly anxiety provoking interpretations have taken place.  Defensive silence is indicated by the degree of mobility in the non-verbal communications of group members.  If members are excessively stiff, rigidly frozen, or extremely restless and perhaps staring pointedly out of the window, then it is probably the case that the silence is defensive.  Essentially the message is either "we are too anxious to talk because we are frightened of what may happen if anyone does", or "we are angry and refuse to co-operate".  The angry type of defensive silence is invariably directed at the group leader and usually follows an unpalatable interpretation.

          (ii)     The Empathatic Silence

          The empathatic silence is also often indicated by the physical postures of the group which tend to be leaning forward.  Invariably what is being expressed is a sense of sharing a common intimate experience when words do not seem to be enough.  The empathatic silence invariably follows a period of very intimate communication between group members.  It is a powerful shared experience.

          (iii)    The Working Silence

          Absolute intimacy is never demanded now could be expected in the short-term working group of the type being described in this paper.  Thus sometimes silences occur which are neither defensive or intimate in the strict sense of the word.  Working silence often occurs after a period of intimate communication or an intervention by the group leader.  Essentially what is happening is each member of the group is working on the meaning of that particular experience for themselves, perhaps deciding whether or not they wish to pursue those particular thoughts in the group as a whole.  Since the working silence often reflects the limits of intimacy, it involves a conscious resistance.  Here group members will say that they are fully aware that the area they are considering provokes anxiety but they do not wish to pursue it within that group at that point in time.  This form of resistance, conscious and publicly stated, defines the limits beyond which individuals within that particular group are not prepared to go.  It is quite different from the other forms of resistance that have been discussed in this paper.  The resistance is public whereas the other forms of resistance we have been considering, have all involved to varying degrees, a public denial of resistance which is either only privately or unconsciously experienced.

4.       THE ROLE OF THE GROUP LEADER

In the training group being described, the group leader's goals are fairly clearly defined as the attempt to enhance members' understanding of processes which occur within groups through an analysis of members' resistance to intimacy.  This education goal is clearly different from therapeutic goals which might be defined in terms of enabling members to become more effective persons through the development of enhanced self-awareness, lessened defensiveness and heightened self-esteem.  Yet in spite of these different goals, there are clearly experiential dimensions along which the two groups only differ in degree rather than kind.  If the training group is successful, then the leader's attempt to analyses the process of resistance will lead to a deepened intimacy within the group.  In this respect the two groups will differ only slightly.  In the training group, the areas of intimacy will largely be restricted to present and past working relationships, whilst in the psychotherapy group the area of concern could well be the person's whole life, past and present.  Similarly, reflecting the greater time available, the psychotherapy group may at times, produce a much greater depth of material from the members' private and unconscious worlds.  Thus the differences in this respect may be only those of degree, and the impact on members in training may be similar to those attending psychotherapy groups.  Namely, a re-assessment of their self-perception due to the opportunities to reflect upon the honest reactions of others to themselves, and the enhancement of self-esteem which often follows from participation in a genuinely concerned and caring relationship.

The major differences between the two groups would be reflected in the way the leader handles certain types of material.  In the training group, the leader's analysis of resistance is conducted with the aim of illustrating group processes and in making choices about the facets of group behaviour on which to concentrate.  The leader would give behaviour illustrating such processes, a high priority.  In contrast, the psychotherapy group leader would only analyses the resistance to intimacy as a means to an end of creating an intimate environment, and material produced would likely to be interpreted to enhance the individual's awareness of themselves and their relationships to others.  In the psycho-analytically orientated group, the interpretation of transference manifestations would likely be given a fairly high priority in contrast to the training group.

The activities of the group leader in the training group can be considered under a number of general headings, these are:- facilitative exercises, blocking interpretations, facilitative interpretations, group process summaries, and educational summaries.

(a)     Facilitative Exercises

          During the early stages of the group, and at different points during the group process, it may be beneficial for the leader to provide a structure which enables the group members to overcome their difficulty in communication.  Such facilitating exercised may aid individuals overcoming the very basic forms of resistance and lack of skill in communicating subjectively.  The most common forms of facilitative exercised are the structured group exercised which were largely pioneered within the "growth movement".  Many of these exercised encourage intimacy without demanding that the individual plunges straight into the group.  Facilitative exercises of this nature may be used illustratively if the group gets to a difficult point being unable to get out of their difficulties.  One of the advantages of these interventions is that they involve all group members in activities which are usually fed back to the group as a whole; they therefore promote a high proportion of the members' involvement in the group which in turn promotes greater intimacy.

          One particularly useful intervention of this nature is sometimes referred to as the "snap".  This may be used at any particular time in a group by the group leader snapping their fingers and asking each member to briefly say what they are experiencing at that point in time.  The use of "snaps" in this fashion can provide the group with a focus from which they can take off.

          One of the features of the present type of training group is that subjects do tend to run dry when there is nothing further to be said, or members have gone as far on a subject matter as they are willing to do.  The use of "snaps" and "structured exercised" often provides material for a new focus.

(b)     Blocking Interpretations

          Perhaps the most powerful form of intervention the group leader is likely to use in the early stages of the group, is the blocking interpretation.  Basically this interpretation takes the form of illustrating to the group members the ways in which a particular form of group activity has impeded the development of intimacy within the group.  The focus of a blocking interpretation may well be any of the type of resistance discussed above.  The formulation of the blocking interpretation within the training group is itself fairly critical; it is invariably useful to talk in terms of consequences of behaviour rather than individual motivation.  For instance, if a group member launches into objective discourse, it is better to interpret this in terms of its effects on another group member quite independently of the person's motivation in doing it.  Attempts to interpret motivation in short-term groups are likely to enhance resistance considerably.  Invariably a successful blocking interpretation will lead to a reduction of that form of behaviour within the group situation and this in turn is likely to lead to enhanced anxiety as the members sense their repertoire of means of avoiding intimacy is reduced.

(c)     The Facilitative Interventions

          Facilitative interventions are conceptualised in terms opposite from those of the blocking interpretation.  In many respects they may be perceived in terms of the group leader's attempts to point out the ways in which the group has struggled with resistance to intimacy and successfully managed to overcome them.  However, the facilitative interventions may take a slightly different form in which the group leader "models" a certain type of response.  Perhaps most commonly the group leader would make an empathatic response which if successful would lead to a deepening of intimacy in a situation where other members of the group have avoided this intimate communication.

(d)     Group Process Summary

          The most common place in which blocking interpretations can be made is within the context of the group process summary.  Such a summary can usefully be made at the end of each group session linking patterns of behaviour that have occurred within the group, picking out major themes, conflicts and difficulties that arose in relationship to these, and linking them to earlier group issues.  The group process summary is more than a re-cap of group events; it is an interpretation of the dynamics of what has been occurring within the group.  In itself its effect is likely to be to cause the group to focus more clearly on certain types of issues which have been identified within the summary and attempt to deal with the problems that have also been pinpointed.

(e)     The Educational Summary

          All the forms of intervention described above may be used by a group leader in a psychotherapeutic group although the specific content of the interventions may differ.  The educational summary however, is the one aspect of the training group which differs quite clearly from the psychotherapy group.  The purpose of the educational summary is to relate the events that have occurred within the group to individual working situations, particularly the type of problem which is likely to be encountered in the working situation.  The educational summary therefore, provides an opportunity for more formal education but basing this upon the actual experiences within the group.

          The educational summary however, illustrates the strange nature of the training group because it invites the individual not only to consider themselves subjectively as they have been doing throughout most of the group, but also objectively so they may translate their behaviour into their own working situation.  Therefore the group leader has in many respects to be careful in his selection of material for the educational summary because it will in fact feed-back into the on-going group process and perhaps, if not carefully handled, lead to reduced intimacy.

5.       CONCLUSIONS

The role of the group leader in the training group is clearly one requiring great skill.  The format provided seems to guard against the worst consequences of exposing members to vaguely defined psychotherapy groups and conducted in a style bearing little relationship to the content of the activity involved.  However, it should not be considered as a benign form of training.  Groups of this nature may lead to very powerful personal experiences that can change a person's perception of themselves in their working life.  This problem is one that we cannot and should not avoid.  The group leader has a responsibility to ensure that attacks on a group member, particularly in the form of scape-goating, persist no longer than necessary to interpret them.  The group leader also has a responsibility not to allow areas of a person's personal life to be opened up when closure cannot be made within the group.  However these points apart, when professionals come into a training group it is with the understanding that they are there to improve their professional effectiveness.  Their professional effectiveness is likely to be severely hampered by unrealistic emotional relationships with their clients and if recognising and coming to terms with this is painful, then it is only asking the professional to do that which is asked of the client.

As a point in passing, it should not necessarily be assumed that the group leader is free from fears of intimacy.  Essentially the group leader's purpose is to facilitate intimate communications amongst group members.  If the group moves into areas problematic for the group leader, there is always a risk that the leader will disrupt the process toward intimacy.  This may be because the group leader fears the subject matter or because the leader fears that they will become a "member" of the group, thus losing their objective stance.  On the other hand, the leader may press the group into areas