Welcome to this post of counselling skills for special group of human individuals. Essentially human is a social animal. Almost all human experience involve interaction with other persons. Group processes are being utilized in many forms in diverse settings by many individuals and there is no age barrier regarding the valuable influence group work has on the character development of individuals. Much of an individual’s character is developed through social interaction, peer relations as well as the family influence.
Within the group counselling context, the individual learns to appreciate and understand his behaviours by observing and comparing with others as well as identifying with them. The group process also, provides the individual with alternative behaviours.
In contemporary human society, group relationship seems to be an indispensable attribute particularly in the area of transmitting social heritage and its ability to leave substantial imprints upon an individual as well as shaping his personality. Today, counselling professionals are expected to possess counselling skills for both individual counselling as well as group work. It is against this background that this chapter addresses the introductory elements in group counselling.
Group
The word group has been defined in many ways. However there are three types of relations frequently denoted by the term “group”. The first and the least important dentition of groups to the counsellor is the aggregation or collection of objects (or persons) in close proximity but without any interplay among them. A second definition also refer to aggregate only that they are homogenous in some respect that would enable them to constitute classes. For example, those who earn say about N80,000 per annum may be said to constitute an economic class. In this case also, there is no interaction among members.
A third definition of group is that in which members have psychological relationship with one another. It is in this sense that the word is to be used throughout this chapter. A collection of individuals therefore becomes a group when:
(1) There is a dynamic interaction between and among members
(2) Members share common goals,
(3) Members belong on their own consent or volition.
(4) Members possess capacity for self-direction. In counselling, a group consists of two or more persons who on their own volition have contact, proximity, and interaction that is intended to produce change in each member.
Group Dynamics
This is another word in group work whose meaning is imprecise. It is a term which refers to the interacting forces within groups as they organize and operate to achieve their objectives. Often it includes group process and group roles. It refers to a sort of political ideology concerning the ways a group should be organized and managed. A number of techniques have been developed that facilitate group control and group problem solving.
One of such techniques is the utilization of an observer whose role is to keep a running account of the group meeting, in an effort to discover why things go well or otherwise. Other techniques include role-playing, buzz sessions feed-back of group process and group decision. The term is also used to refer to a field of inquiry dedicated to achieving knowledge about the nature of groups, the laws of their development, and their interrelation with individuals, other groups, and larger institutions.
Group Process
The term “process” is described by such words as “movement”, “change”, “action”, “development”, “behaviour” depending upon the point of view of an individual. Process is continuous, dynamic and directional. These descriptive terms may be brought together in a sentence to define a process as: A continuous, dynamic, directional life movement of an individual within his phenomenal field.
This movement includes everything that takes place inside the individual, as well as his relationship with the external environment. It is what he thinks and the conscious data that registers in his viscera. It is what outsiders hear him saying or observe him doing together with all that they construe within such action. It is everything that he does, thinks, or feels. It is everything that others see him do, believe he feels, or infer he thinks.
Group process is when two or more people work together on anything for any purpose, by any method of study, inquiry, or human relations. This might sound too general. In counselling, group process is the way people work together to release an emergent quality called psychological climate, group morale, “esprit de corps”, or cooperative unity, through which each discovers and develops his inner capacities, realizes better the nature of its self, releases more of his past experience, and learns how to crate emergent quality in all life situations.
In group process, individuals release into the environment potential creative ability previously unknown to them. A higher level of thinking emerges than was possessed by any individual prior to the qualitative interaction, thereby giving each the opportunity to become a better self.
Counselling Skills for Therapy Groups
Therapy groups are excellent examples of groups in which the focus of attention is the psyche group process. In the immediate face to face relationships in the therapy group, the psyche group process becomes the central concern because here support and stimulation do not further a visualised task, but rather serve to create the freedom of expression which, in turn, fosters spontaneity of interaction and reminiscence. These become the date of analysis and interpretation with which the therapist works.
It is interesting to note that the content of discussion is most likely to be concerned with past or contemporary psyche group associations, family relation, sibling rivalry, authority struggles in the therapy group for which their daily life has not been able to deal with, without occasioning incapacitating anxiety. The therapist is the person in whom these processes do not occasion the same degree of anxiety and who in his understanding of his own anxieties can help the counsellee understand his.
These therapy groups never have goals in the socio-group sense. Group therapy is usually defined as the application of therapeutic principles to two or more individuals simultaneously to clarify their psychological conflicts so that they may live normally. It is usually reserved for the more seriously disturbed individuals.
According to Coney and Coney, (1977) many people participate in group therapy to try to alleviate specific symptoms or problems such as depression, sexual problem, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders. Group therapy is also given to young married couples, delinquents, executives, and troubled families. Some of the techniques used include: play-back to help members see what, how and why certain behaviours occurred in the interaction, saturation services, physical movement, etc.
Classification of Groups
Groups have been classified in numerous ways, size, nature of interaction, goals or purposes, and organisations have been used as variables in categorizing them. A common basis of differentiation has been the main function served by the group: educational, religious, recreational, political, etc. the degree of permanence is another basis for categorizing groups. Groups range from the very temporary to the highly stable. Some of the classifications that are of consequence to the counsellor include:
Primary Versus Secondary Groups
Primary Groups are those in which members meet face to face for companionship, mutual aid, and the resolution of issues that confront them. Groups are: the family, the play group, the partnership and the study group. Groups such as these are called primary because they are first in time and importance.
The characteristics of primary groups are (a) small size (b) similarity of member’s background (c) limited self-interest and (d) intensity of shared interest.
Secondary groups are those in which the members are not as intimate as that of the primary group. Here also, contact is more or less casual. Examples include: committees and lecture groups.
Ingroup Versus Outgroup
To the individual, the group to which he/she identifies by virtue of his/her awareness or consciousness of kind is his/her ingroup. Examples are ones family, club, set, occupation and religion, Shertzer and Stone (1981) suggest that an individual’s expression of subjective attitudes frequently reveal his/her ingroup membership.
Outgroup is defined by the individual with relation to the in-group usually by the expression of contrast between “we” and “they” or “others”. Out-group attitudes are characterized by expressions of difference and sometimes by varied degrees of antagonism, prejudice, hatred or apathy.
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