Posted by Reggie BoStar on December 14, 2011, at 14:42:14
In reply to Re: quick.. someone say something psychological » sleepygirl2, posted by pegasus on December 14, 2011, at 12:15:12
Hey Pegasus,
That could depend a lot on how the groups are moderated. If a moderator can't handle any narcissists who happen to be in a group, the latter tend to dominate the discussion to the point where no one else can get a word in edgewise. In those situations everyone else is shut down, not just the folks who feel uncomfortable expressing themselves in a group.I've seen it both ways in the many types of groups I've attended. In the early days I would talk to the moderators of such dysfunctional groups privately, or with some of the other group members, to try to fix things so everyone would get a fair amount of time to talk.
Later, I stopped bothering with that and just stopped going to those particular groups. For whatever reasons, it seemed that many of those particular moderators were as locked into their behaviors as the narcissists were.
That said, those were the minority of the cases. The majority of moderated groups I've attended have been managed efficiently, so that everyone got a chance to speak, and the narcissists got the help they needed to work on their problems too.
If you can find a group with a moderator that knows how to do that - give equal time to everyone, whether they're dominant, submissive, neither - you've struck gold.
Of course, non-moderated groups are an open crap shoot with infinite-sided dice. Anything can happen in different groups, or in the same group on a week to week basis. The best you can hope for is a narcissist who knows how to manage therapy groups!!!
Over time I've found that the best moderated groups are those whose moderators are psychology healthcare folks: psychiatrists, psychotherapists, or social workers who specialize in therapy. I don't have biases for those particular moderator types - it's just the way things worked out for me. In other areas it could easily be different, but around here those are the types of moderated groups I try to find.
Hope this helps somehow,
Reggie BoStar
poster:Reggie BoStar
thread:1004609
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20111017/msgs/1004945.html