When one ponders how to achieve the progression of our fellow man it suffices us to say various things that are perhaps more based on opinion than actual fact. Meaning that a point of view arises that can easily be dissected into both and yet still meet the qualifications for a scientific method conducted within a social prism, that we could identify simply as communication. Apologies if my presentation sounded a bit winded. I simply wish to draw your attention to the complexity of an art form that we all often take for granted. It is within this framework that a person grows from infancy through to adulthood. The words of our loved ones are often the first sound that we hear that are actually meant to engage us and embrace our attention for the purpose of creating a conduit of love. That is if our early years are based in a positive context with loving parents who make us a priority, so often this goes awry and quickly the developing mind is wrapped in dysfunction and mayhem and Erickson’s first step of bonding on the continuum of Trust vs. Distrust is slanted away from the most advantageous and sent crashing down into the quagmire of doubt and pain which in turn becomes a negative self-concept that lays a fertile ground for the creation of a fake self.
I am aware that this seems a laborious segway into what I intend to achieve with the progression of this work. The meaningfulness is centered in the intent to foreshadow if you will the genesis of man’s inhumanity to man and how in what seems to be a simple format we engage our clients in a cathartic exercise most commonly referred to as ‘process group’. As clinicians, we muster these people of pain into an interactive dynamic where we intend to guide them through their anguish and toward the more positive side of the emotional development scale. It is here that the opportunity for change becomes paramount as we seek to connect therapeutically with all the participants and still accomplish individual goals while not misaligning any of the growth that has gained purchase in the new fields that have been plowed and enriched by insightful exploration of self.
A process group becomes the new incubator within which you can grow a person with a perspective that they have never had knowledge of or simply only seen in others and thought that they could never achieve. This process should be organic and allow for the ebb and flow of ever changing perspectives to be acknowledged and cultivated toward the concept of the greater good. A north star is symbolic with the direction a person would willingly travel or incorporate in a manner that would allow them to find their bearings in the world to avoid the deep sense of dread that can befall someone adrift in a sea of disconnection. The greater good becomes that northern star and can be used as the fulcrum for the realignment of flow in building a purpose driven therapeutic dynamic.
Once achieved, the clinician must become in synch with the groups emotional movements and work to elicit conversations that can be developed into fruitful gains for all members. For this to be accomplishable the clinician must be centered and grounded as the person they are and have the intuition to see the potential in each of the participants as they create a new path of progression. While maintaining the group dynamic and weaving the independent threads of each member a tapestry appears where the means and measure of growth become intertwined in a cohesive melody of conviction, arching over the hemisphere and into the horizon where the enigmatic fulfillment occurs resulting in the casual factor of the greatest progressions. Simply stated ‘love of other’, it is when this harmonizing feature becomes an achievable inundate of self that all will grow and move forward from distrust to trust, thus accomplishing the first step of Erikson’s developmental theory and synchronizing the members future endeavors with the concepts of the greater good.
Written by: Brian “Happy” Bryanson, LPC.