HOW DO GROUPS WORK?

The following central ideas animate group psychotherapy and make it effective.

UNIVERSALIZATION
Universalization is the realization by the individual that her "private" experience is one that is common for humankind. A person will often express relief when she discovers that she and other group members share similar experiences.

DIFFERENTIATION
Groups can help dispel the fantasy of uniqueness than can prove so troublesome in social adaptation and self-acceptance. Yet group members must be prepared to embrace the real differences that distinguish them from others in their group if they are to grasp a full sense of self.

EXPERIMENTATION
Learning by trial and error is a large part of the group experience. The individual can experiment with actions and new behavior in a "near to life" setting. This is often referred to as reality testing.

SOCIALIZATION
Group is a social laboratory that can approximate for each member a new family,which in contrast to the family of origin, can meet the needs of the individual for nurturance, patience, care and love.

COMMUNICATION
Ninety percent of the communication in group is nonverbal, yet the currency of group therapy is words and speech. Gestures, posture, facial expressions, movements, and the images we have of our bodies - are all potent messages transmitted subtly and indirectly to others. Communication is at the center of all group processes.

EXTERNALIZATION and INTERNALIZATION
The human imagination has the capacity to arrange within the mind relationships between the images of the self and images of others. These images are preverbal in origin, and throughout our lives they hold power over how we perceive ourselves in relationships with others in the world. How our inner world affects and is affected by external reality and is a dynamic that is constantly played out in the relationships we form in groups. From this perspective, the aim of therapy is to alter the inner realm of the individual in order to improve the quality of his relations in the external world.

RECAPITULATION and REPARATION
By their very structure, groups enable each member to recapitulate her family of origin or the institutional milieu in which her caretaking was given. This is a powerful regression to the past for a person to experience; it opens up opportunities to heal and repair many of the wounds that were inflicted on a child during those early years. It is an extraordinary feature of the group that this repetition of early life can occur simultaneously for all group members.

REORGANIZATION
An assumption of group therapy is that individuals will act out their maladaptive behavior in group. And yet the group can set the stage for the individual to reorganize something within himself; if while in the group he has an emotional experience that serves to correct a traumatic or false impression from the past that impedes him from living fully in the present.

SUBLIMATION
involves the redirection of primitive destructive urges into creative, constructive actions that foster ego growth.

REVELATION
Groups offer the individual the chance to reveal himself before the others. The revelation of character in the presence of a sympathetic audience links group therapy to drama and other forms of art. The individual, as protagonist of his life, must act without complete knowledge of himself. Group members have a great desire to have their characters to revealed to them; they look to each other as mirrors to accomplish this. We have both the fear of being seen and a wish to be revealed to others.