Yalom Group Psychotherapy: Essential Skills for Effective Group Facilitation

Speakers:

Mr Clinton Power Clinical Counsellor & Gestalt Therapist Founder of Australia Counselling www.AustraliaCounselling.Com.Au

Psychotherapist, counsellor, master trainer for Counsellors in Addiction Intervention Co-founder and Director of Australian Institute of Counselling in Addiction www.lakescope.com

www.AustraliaCounselling.Com.Au

[START OF VIDEO] Clinton Power:Hello, this is Clinton Power, founder of the AustraliaCounselling.Com.Au. It's my great pleasure to be here today with June Lake, who is co-founder and director of the Australian Institute of Counselling in Addictions since 1997. She is an experienced

psychotherapist, counsellor, interventionist, clinical supervisor, teacher-trainer and consultant, and she has designed, implemented, and evaluated training programs in the private and government sectors. As a senior lecturer and trainer at the AICA, June trained hundreds of counsellors as addiction specialists and is a master trainer nationally for the USA originated and internationally applied program Life Management, Relapse Prevention, and Building Health Relationships. And I personally know June to be a passionate group facilitator so we titled this interview Yalom Group Psychotherapy: Essential Skills for Effective Interpersonal Group Facilitation. So welcome, June. June Lake:Hello, Clinton, thank you. Clinton:Well, lets start by letting us know a little bit about how did your passion for group therapy come about? June:In starting this cofounding and beginning the Australian Institute of Counselling in Addictions, I met three United States Marines from the Navy School of Health Sciences. There was Ed Lacy, Paul Mullen, and Barry Gillen, three amazing group facilitators and therapists, and I was just so inspired and motivated that I determined after working with two of them that I wanted to be just like them. I wanted to be able to make the changes in peoples lives or facilitate them to make the changes that I saw these 3 men were able to do.
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Clinton: But tell us what was it you saw in those group therapy demonstrations that was so powerful impacted you in such a big way? June: It was the skill levels, they were based in theory, they understood what they were doing, it wasnt a hit-or-miss, they were just so highly skilled that I knew if they had learned it Id be able to learn it too. And I was determined that I would learn it. Clinton: Wonderful. So lets talk a little bit about how the skills in the therapy room are similar and different from group facilitation skills because I understand there are points of difference. Can you tell us a bit about that? June: Well, they certainly are. There are points of similarity in terms of micro skills and there are points of differences in I think the biggest difference is in group psychotherapy where instead of just applying the therapists and the client in the interactions, weve got client interaction or group member to group member and weve got therapists to client or group member. And Irv Yaloms work has a very definite process focus. So were actually as sisting clients to self-explore to go in the journey of self-exploration and thats done through the interpersonal interactions with the other group members. Clinton: So tell us a bit about the Yalom approach, can you give us a brief overview? I understand its certainly an extensive approach and if anyone has seen the textbook, its sometimes called the bible of group psychotherapy, its an enormous paperweight. But can you give us a brief summary of the Yalom approach? June: Yes. Irv Yalom and youre right, his theory and practice of group psychotherapy is the bible and its voluminous, I mean it takes ages to get through , but everything about group is there that you would want to know. His approach is definitely based on process and when
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Irv Yalom talks about process, hes talking about the nature of relationships between and among members, and he works primarily with the dynamics that occur as members relate to one another. So its quite a different approach and hes over time looking to empower gr oup members so that the power is in the group, and as you and I have said many times, the agent of change for individuals is the group. The power is in the facilitator s use of skills rather than team working one-on-one with members to effect change. Clinton: Well, I think that in itself is probably a very big statement that the group is the agent of change, and I guess another point of difference with individual therapy as well? June: Absolutely. Its something like Im not good at math, Clinton, but th e figures are something like when youre working with the group of eight people theres the potential for something like 320 different relationship formulations, so youre pretty busy as a group facilitator. Clinton:Wow, thats extraordinary. So what are other qualities of an effective group therapist, can we touch on that? June: Sure. I believe that the qualities that a therapist needs to begin facilitating, and let me stress that after extensive training they certainly need to have respect. They need to have patience, they need to be able to sit with tension and even arouse tension in some circumstances. They need to be able to accept criticism without getting angry and they certainly need to be able to look beyond whats being said in the group in ord er to move that group in the direction where healing can be most effective. Theres no point. If you dont have respect for your group members, your group members wont respect you and the potential of the group and the potential growth for the individuals will never be realized. Its essential
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that people have patience if theyre going to be group facilitators because the very best you can expect the group process is slow and of course its very complex. So sometimes you need to

sit with things that are happening over and over again and not jumping too quickly. You will also need to be able to allow tension to arise in the group because quite often its in that tension where group members will be more inclined to speak the truth. And because of the different stages that groups go through in the developmental areas when you hit what we call adolescence and members start to flex their muscles, they start to challenge, they start to become competitive, angry, you really need to be able to sit with that and use it to promote growth rather than trying to shut them down. And you need to certainly look beyond whats being said if youre going to work effectively with that group. Its no use just focusing on the content. Clinton: I think what I hear you saying there, June, is that the personal development and professional development of group facilitators are essential and Im wondering how important do you think it is for group facilitators to actually have been a group participant themselves in the past? June: Really good question, I think its essential, Clinton. I think unless you had the experience of actually sitting in the group and feeling the emotions that are felt when youre receiving feedback, when youre giving feedback in moments of tension, then theres two things that can likely happen: One is youll be too fearful to be bold and enthusiastic enough to interact or intervene in the way that will promote growth and change. Or secondly, because youre not being there yourself, theres a strong likelihood that youll start making demands on group members and wanting them to go there and trying to control the group. And of course if
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a facilitator is doing this, they will actually shut the group down and the potential of the group will never be realized. Clinton: So you mentioned that groups go through stages. Do you mind us touching on what other stages or what others expected developmental stages that a healthy group would go through? June: Okay. There are four stages and there are many different terminologies depending on the modality of therapy where the facilitator comes from. The one I like, because I think it most aptly describes the stage, is adolescence I beg your pardon infancy, adolescence, maturity, and termination. An infancy parallels what we know in infants, theyre dependent on the leader, theyre looking for structure, and probably theyre going to keep themselves relatively safe, theyre not going to rock the boat. When they move into the adolescent phase, theyre a little more venturous, just like adolescent boys and girls, theyre looking to prove themselves, theyre looking to prove in the case of families the parents or authority figures dont know anything and they want to rock the boat. And unless you allow them to try out different roles and behaviours in this adolescent phase, theyre probably never going to move into the maturity stage of the group which is where the real work happens. And then of course if each time walks through it is going to go into termination or even when one member terminates the group, youll often see regression back to a safer type of group that was seen in the very all strategies. Clinton: Well, lets talk about what are some of the specific skills that therapists need to be to facilitate a group, and I think youve touched on a few of this already. One thats standing out to me, June, is certainly the ability to be out to hold tension and certainly as a group moves
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into adolescence, you know, imagining you will also need to be out to tolerate criticism and people getting upset and angry with you. Tell us more about some of those skills. June: Well, all of those that you just mentioned are vital. I think the most specific skills, Clinton, you need to be able to differentiate between process and content. And were

socialized as a society to focus on content, whats being said , and a perfect example of this is one I like to use because weve come over late to it is the family Christmas table where ten or twelve members of the family come together and they range from 5 to perhaps 85 and Uncle Harry is holding cotton reminiscing as he loves to do and tell the stories about Christmas hes gone and his experiences and people hear this year-in, year-out, they know it off by heart, theyre tired but Little Mary sits there and says, Uncle Harry, you havent stopped talking since we sat down. And of course everyone says, Mary, be quiet, dont be rude to Uncle Harry! You see, hes called the process that everyone is sitt ing bored to death listening to the content. So you need to be able to differentiate between process and content. You need to strike a balance between maintaining the group, keeping the group working, and achieving the task of the groups. So we look very closely at facilitators acquiring the ability to differentiate between functional and non-functional roles, and we call them behaviours and roles; those that are the functional and those that are non-functional. Theres also the list of Irv Yaloms security factors or I think he calls them therapeutic factors now. And there are those happenings that occur, the experiences that come up in the group as group members go about interacting with one another and have the potential for healing. You also need to know the stages that you just asked me about and let me say every word that comes out of a facilitators mouth is not an intervention. We interact as facilitators
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as well depending on the stage of the groups. So in order to intervene at a crucial, at critical point, something that has the potential to hum the development of the group and the growth of the members in the group, youll also need to know when to intervene and to intervene effectively at each of those four stages because theyre quite different. So theres a whole range of skills. You need to know what the process elements are. Its no good just understanding that process is about the nature of relationships and theres people interact, theyre the dynamics that we work with. You need to know what those process elements are. Clinton: So I guess, what Im taking from that, June, is if you want to be a facilitator, your want is not for the light of heart but also that its obviously important to have really specific and extensive training in group facilitation skills. These are often not skills that are taught in a regular counselling or psychotherapy degree. June: Right, theyre specialized. Theyre specialized skills, Clinton, they do need specialized training. I think that because groups are cost-effective theres a tendency to think well throw them into group, but its a whole lot more than this. Just as such amazing abilities to create growth and healing that needs to be in the hands of somebody thats trained. Clinton: So what are some of the most common mistakes you see perhaps beginner group therapists make? June: I think its concentrating. You know, when you knew and I remember those days I intently listened to every word that was being said because somehow I thought that if I heard everything and I do listen intently still but I was missing the process, I was so focused on what was being said and of course that was in order to solve the problem. And I think that neophyte
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facilitators get caught into that. And thats understandable, the desire to look intelligent, know what youre doing and bring about some change in probably group members. I think also that unless you have a really good knowledge of how groups maintain and develop, that for instance when they hit that second stage and its fire in Brimstone then theres a tendency for untrained facilitators to go into some sort of control to be either in facilitator-initiated transferential energy or part of transferential energy, and of course youre just supporting the members in acting out more. So I think theres a lot of traps for new facilitators and I think it can be helped when they co-facilitate with somebody with a little bit more experience or theyre trained and they have a sense of mastery and direction about what theyre doing. I think they can let go of some of the nerves then. Clinton: And just another point, June, I mean is it necessary to have a co-facilitator or can you still be just as effective running a group on your own? June: I like that, Clinton. Its much easier on your own, you dont have to consider the rhythms of the other person. I think what I see, I do a lot of clinical supervision of health professionals and what I see so much around, not just New South Wales but other states when Im working, is I see a lot of shared facilitation versus co-facilitation. Co-facilitation is like marriage and members will always try and split and divide and a strong echoing in situation theyre unable to do this. Shared facilitation is something quit e different, its where the two facilitators decide wholl do what. It has its place and particularly in psychoed groups or something like that, but in the process group its never as effective as echoing process.
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Clinton: So, June, Im aware that youre under a training, a week-long training in group facilitation, tell us a little bit about that. June: Well, it probably covers most of the things that weve been talking about but obviously a whole lot more, what I can say in a few minutes is not what we can do in five intensive days. Its a five-day program, mornings are devoted to theory, afternoons to actually putting into practice what they have learned that morning and accumulative over the five days because the training group is co-facilitated. One of the facilitators will coach each member individually as they co-facilitate with whoever is co-facilitating the training group. Its a very, very effective way of learning because youre not just relying on yourself, youve got a co-facilitator and youve got another professional beside you thats just coaching you, allowing you to say things but being there as a sort of a backstop if they needed. Clinton: Wonderful. I sorry, go ahead. June: I try and do two training programs a year in Sydney, so far I havent managed one but we do have one commencing on the 28 th of June and thats a Friday so it runs Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday which is the 2nd of July. And Ive done this, Clinton, because therapists, as you know particularly in private practice, find it difficult to take five days Monday through Friday, of course they cannot fit in a Saturday and a Sunday and only three days out. And this is being held at Mary Mackillop Place in North Sydney, only run generally 8:30 to 4: 30. Clinton: Wonderful. Now, Ive done, June, this training a number of years ago and I can certainly testify it certainly is intense in a good way, and one of things I love about your
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training, June, was just the way we did the intense theory in the morning but then going into group and actually living it, actually experiencing what it likes to be a member or to be facilitator. I mean, there really is no theres no better way to learn and actually doing it and no theory can kind of capture that. June: Oh, Im so pleased to hear you say that because its my belief. Thats how I learned to be a group therapist, and its for the last 20 odd years its how I thought I was to be amazing group therapist. Clinton: And I think for many therapists, its also a wonderful way to augment your common practice so to become to do training in group and then to be off of that as another service to your client is certainly very beneficial in terms of being out of the current clients and new clients into groups, so I hope that the therapists watching it will consider that as part of they kind of practice as something beneficial for your own practice and for your clients. June: Look, I cant underscore what youre saying strongly enough. Its not just a matter of keeping the ball rolling because its what everyone needs to do, if theyre in private practice they need to generate business and its one way to do that. But more importantly, so often the therapy that occurs in the post therapy room between the therapist and the client goes so far and then to be able to put them in a group of seven or eight or nine people and have them look at how they come across to other people, how theyre received. It is just added growth for them and to me its like completing the therapy. Clinton: Yes, its something that always surprises me. It shouldnt surprise me but just to work with the client individually and then have them come into group and just see them

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have such a different experience because of the multiple perceptions and feedback coming towards and it absolutely is a huge growth experience. So, June, thank you so much for giving up your time today to speak to the Australia Counselling community. Its been a pleasure as always to speak with you , and I hope we can connect again sometime. June:Id love that, Clinton, thank you. Clinton:Thanks, June, and all the best! June:Bye bye now. Clinton:Bye bye! [END OF VIDEO]

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