Well I just spent a week with one of Australia master Psychotherapists, Supervisors and unashamed Yalom devotee’s , June Lake, whom facilitated a 5 day intensive on Group Psychotherapy-Leadership and Facilitation. I had attended this course 12 years ago, and June has been a mentor to me for over 20 years now. Some relationships in your professional life stand alone, and this one does for me. Many an hour has been spent either in group, or in supervision and on the phone seeking advice to my latest existential dilemma. Always, once I am done, clarity and a brighter direction are the result.
To have a mentor champion you, is a gift that keeps giving, and this last week was like Christmas.
To have a mentor champion you, is a gift that keeps giving, and this last week was like Christmas.
June is passionate about the work, believing wholeheartedly in the premises ; That we are , who we are, wherever we are, and therefore Group Therapy, focusing on Process and Relationship gives us a unique opportunity to work relationally in a group setting, were all we need to know is available to us in the room, in the here and now. Therefore any intervention, develops a new skill, will reveal a growing edge, and give us access to feedback about how others experience us. All of these things can be difficult to embrace, especially when we have come from shame based families with Developmental Trauma histories. On top of that some of us have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or as Bessel van Der Kolk would have it called, Development Trauma Disorder.
One day the regulatory Psychiatric community will catch up (they just included Gambling as a disorder!) but until then, we will stand at the edge of the treatment field and keep offering support and trauma informed care. If our Fight Flight Freeze is easily activated, or we have developed personality disorders were disassociation is present at a high level, making it impossible to filter out others realities, and allowing us to have a clear sense of our own, then Yalom style process groups might not be for you immediately, but even those clients can spend some time working to develop Affect regulation skills and boundaries that allow this form of therapeutic support to be of benefit.
One day the regulatory Psychiatric community will catch up (they just included Gambling as a disorder!) but until then, we will stand at the edge of the treatment field and keep offering support and trauma informed care. If our Fight Flight Freeze is easily activated, or we have developed personality disorders were disassociation is present at a high level, making it impossible to filter out others realities, and allowing us to have a clear sense of our own, then Yalom style process groups might not be for you immediately, but even those clients can spend some time working to develop Affect regulation skills and boundaries that allow this form of therapeutic support to be of benefit.
The week includes 5 days of Morning Didactic down loads on the philosophies, tools and skills necessary to facilitate group. Afternoons start with watching the Godfather of Group Therapy Work, Irving Yalom on film, then for the last two hours, you ARE the group. That’s right. You become a member of a group, only stepping out of the group to facilitate the group of your peers for an hour, and then receive feedback from June who supervises the group.There is simply nowhere to hide.
As a caveat, this is not the first time I have done this, as I did the course over a decade ago, but I had also spent years in a group, that June facilitated of peers in the field. We hired June to come and run the group, and in doing so teach us the finer art of running the group. It was some of the most enlightening and challenging hours I have spent in recovery. Every time I would look forward to going to group, that would be the week that my growing edges revealed themselves, I often went home heavy carrying the gift I received, usually wrapped in sandpaper. I never regretted a moment, but there was many a time I had wished learning about yourself , and learning to communicate better, was easier. But relationships take relationship, being in contact, reality to reality. The internal spiritual crisis that Pia Mellody writes about, cannot be resolved by defences and roles, but only through being honest , where we would usually be dishonest, especially through omission.
Therefore, whether it being a training group, or one for your own recovery, you quickly learn there is where to hide your true nature. You are going to be revealed. Even if you chose to sit there, and contribute at a surface level, through niceness or humour, the group will quickly see that this is how you keep yourself safe, and with your consent give you the feedback of what that is like for them to experience. What fosters member participation is that this feedback is usually not your first rodeo. Because we are who we are wherever we are, it will ring in your ears, reminding you of the key relationships of your life, and how you have heard it before. We certainly can remain in denial, or be dishonest about its familiarity. But you will know it’s the truth.
A group well run, is very safe, and participates at the level the member is in consent of working at, respectful of individual boundaries. Just experiencing this level of safety to experience self and others is a revelation for some, whom have come from families where it was based on the old adage; Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust and Don’t Feel.
It will come as no surprise that the benefits of the group, as identified by Yalom himself are
1. Instillation of Hope.
2. Universality.
3. Imparting Information.
4. Altruism.
5. The corrective recapitulation of the primary family group.
6. Development of Socializing Techniques.
7. Imitative Behaviour.
8. Interpersonal Learning.
9. Group Cohesiveness.
10. Catharsis.
11. Existential Factors.
As you can see this list is exhaustive in its opportunities, if you are willing to consent to take risks and share yourself in the here and now you can grow in amazing ways personally.
After years Yalom researched the benefits from groups members themselves and they came up with the following benefits:
- Discovering and accepting previously unknown or unacceptable parts of myself.
- Being able to say what was bothering me instead of holding it in.
- Other members telling me honestly what they think of me.
- Learning how to express my feelings.
- The groups teaching me about the type of impression i make on others
- Expressing negative and/or positive feelings towards another member.
- Learning that I must take responsibility for the way I live my life, no matter how much guidance and support I get from others
- Learning how I come across to others.
- Seeing that others could reveal embarrassing information and take other risks and benefit from it helped me to do the same.
- Feeling more trustful of groups and other people.
For many years I have had the opportunity to run group. In treatment centres, and in private practice. As I have said , I have been part of groups. Self help, 12 step, weekend retreats, Men’s groups, Process Groups . All have met for different lengths of time, some peer driven, some didactically based and task driven. All have taught me something.
As I head towards my 30th year of practicing Psychotherapy, I have started again to facilitate Process groups again, true to the nature of Yalom’s vision and protocols. Men’s groups and mixed groups. The opportunity is accelerated learning. Life is short, especially if you are dealing with the impact of developmental trauma. Years wasted in stressful relationships, where it felt like you were given the rules for scrabble and you were looking at the game of monopoly.
Process Groups take courage that is for sure. But we get that in recovery, when you surrender in the first step and work your way through the steps towards spiritual awakening. This awakening provides us with courage, as the serenity prayer challenges us to reflect on.
God, Grant me the Serenity
To accent the things I can not change
Courage to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference.
This courage, if exercised in a process group, with the support of a good facilitator and in the company of others travellers Trudging their road to Happy Destiny, can be a game changer. To not accept the pathology that we inherited, but to have the Courage to reveal ourselves, so we can get the feedback and support and opportunity to make the changes necessary to Thrive and not just Survive.
If you work in this field and you work with groups, I could not recommend this course more highly. In the afternoon, we would watch Irving Yalom facilitate a group, and we would then discuss and then be in group. One thing becomes very clear when you are in the company of June Lake. You realise she is now a master in her own right. June might have been a student of Yalom once, but her breadth of knowledge , experience and the ability to work with students at what ever level they are at, to hold them in deep regard and respect and illuminate their growing edges with clarity and compassion I think is her greatest skill.Dont miss an opportunity to learn from a world class practitioner.
When June facilitates group, she regularly implores you to listen for the music, not just the words.
When you watch June in action, it is music. Beautiful Music
Please contact June Lake for all training course. Details on the flyer. Contact me if interested in joining a Process Group.
