Posted by JenStar on July 31, 2004, at 15:00:55
In reply to Jenstar, posted by Susan47 on July 30, 2004, at 17:40:34
hi Susan,
I'm not a therapist myself (although I like to pretend to be an 'armchair psychologist' sometimes!)In the book I was reading, written by a therapist, it def. sounded like group therapy can be hard for the group members at time. Sorry if I was vague in my previous mail - I meant that comment about 'being lambasted on all sides' to refer to group member who are being assaulted by peers, not the therapist.
The therapist who wrote the book said that he often lets difficult situations in Group keep going on without interfering himself, in order to let the group members resolve the pain.
If a T lets it go on TOO long, though, it seems to me that it could easily cross the line from agressive 'tough love' into 'abandonment.' If group members are rather fragile, and the T allows members to argue and be too mean to each other, I could see the situation turning from painful/beneficial into painful/setback-ish.
Of course I'm not in Tabitha's group so it's not fair for me to try and assume I know what's going on! But this book was fascinating to me - it opened up some insight into what the T is thinking about during difficult Group sessions, and how the T plans to handle conflict among members.
Anyway, hope you're doing well.
take care!JenStar
> I'm just picking this up out of your post, as I find it incredibly interesting ... "It sounds like a very painful process to me...being lambasted on all sides as flawed people work through their issues and figure out that they have misplaced aggression towards mother, father, etc."
> It hit me really hard as I was reading this: is this what it's like for a therapist????
>
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poster:JenStar
thread:371475
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040728/msgs/372679.html