Teaching Group Dynamics: Process and Practices

Nina W. Brown

Nov. 1992 · Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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This volume concentrates on teaching group dynamics with an experiential, process focus. The procedure for instruction seeks to provide an integration of cognitive and affective components in learning how to tune into, and effectively use, group dynamics. Instructors and supervisors are provided with specific techniques for helping students understand manifestations of resistance, countertransference issues, assuming a process orientation, and dealing with both individual and group-as-a-whole concerns. Immensely practical and classroom tested.

Chapter 1 provides an overview and a discussion of ethical principles in group work. Chapter 2 focuses on how to structure the class, including a systematic method for monitoring group sessions, providing feedback to students, and addressing specific ethical concerns such as confidentiality and involuntary group membership. Chapter 3 develops the importance, and a process for, helping students to stay present-centered, keeping the group in a here-and-now focus, and how to recognize process. Chapter 4 presents the barriers to self-awareness and group process. Chapter 5 addresses how developing trust and cohesion in groups leads to therapeutic work on significant issues for group members. Chapter 6 describes the link between what is taking place in the present-centered group session and the past. Chapter 7 focuses on the roles that group members assume and the impact these roles may have on the progress and functioning of the group. Chapter 8 deals with teaching students to recognize and deal with overt and covert conflict in the group. Chapter 9 provides an introduction to the use of expressive techniques in groups. Chapter 10 presents specific exercises that are useful in teaching concepts, ranging from get-acquainted exercises to more complex ones for uncovering the self.

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NINA W. BROWN is Associate Professor of Counselor Education at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. She is the author of Interpersonal Relations (1986) and co-author of Readings in Education and Psychology (1968). She has written for Group and Organizational Studies, Journal of Instructional Psychology, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, and Psychological Reports.