Human Development
Encounter group
Description:
The term encounter group covers a wide variety of planned intensive group experience. The basic encounter group tends to emphasize personal growth and development and improvement of interpersonal communications and relationships through an experiential process. The aim is to assist in three needs inherent in the concept of self: confident [inclusion] in social dealings with others; balanced attitudes towards [control] of a situation; and solution of problems of [affection] and acceptance.Associated group activities (described separately) include: sensitivity training group, T-group, sensory awareness group, organizational development group, team building group, task-oriented group. All these forms tend to have some common characteristics. The group is usually small (from 8 to 18 members), relatively unstructured, choosing its own goals and personal directions. The experience frequently, although not necessarily, involves some cognitive input presented to the group. Usually the leader's responsibility is primarily the facilitation of the expression of both feelings and thoughts on the part of group members. There is a focus on the process and dynamics of immediate personal interactions. Such groups may meet intensively over several days or weeks or regularly once or twice a week over an extended period. In one form, a group may meet continuously for 24 hours or more and is then known as an encounter marathon (described separately).
Carl Rogers has formulated a number of practical hypotheses which tend to be held in common by all such groups:
1. A facilitator can develop, in a group which meets intensively, a psychological climate of safety in which freedom of expression and reduction of defensiveness gradually occur.
2. In such a psychological climate many of the immediate feeling reactions of each member toward others, and of each member toward himself, tend to be expressed.
3. A climate of mutual trust develops out of this mutual freedom to express real feelings, positive and negative. Each member moves toward greater acceptance of his total being - emotional, intellectual, and physical - as it is, including its potential.
4. With individuals less inhibited by defensive rigidity, the possibility of change in personal attitudes and behaviour, in professional methods, in administrative procedures and in relationships becomes less threatening.
5. With the reduction of defensive rigidity, individuals can hear each other, can learn from each other, to a greater extent.
6. There is a development of feedback from one person to another such that each individual learns how he appears to others and what impact he has in interpersonal relationships.
7. With this greater freedom and improved communication, new ideas, new concepts, new directions emerge. Innovation can become a desirable rather than a threatening possibility.
8. These learnings in the group experience tend to carry over, temporarily or more permanently, into the relationships with spouse, children, students, subordinates, peers, and even superiors following the group experience.
The encounter group technique has been used in a variety of settings including: universities, industry, church, government agencies, penitentiaries, and educational institutions. The participants therefore include every variety of person but particularly those combinations of persons that can benefit from better interpersonal communication and sensitivity in their daily activity.
In such a group, the individual comes to know himself and each of the others more completely than is possible in the usual working or social relationships. He becomes more deeply acquainted with his own inner self which tends normally to be hidden behind masks and facades; and discovers that his real feelings are quite acceptable to members of the group. The degree to which he is accepted by the others increases, as his ability to communicate genuinely with them increases. Participants experience a closeness and intimacy which they may not even have experienced with members of their own family. A sense of confidence and trust is therefore built up enabling him to relate better to others, both in the group and outside it.
Broader:
Human potential movement Narrower:
Encounter marathon