Any suggestions

[MikeGurr]

I have been studying AT and like the new insights and understandings that it brings. That is why I am looking for techniques that can help people in group therapy situations. I am a co-facilitator for a group right now, and would like any ideas that people have for groups. Thanks

[drlynch]

Mike,

Some first thoughts. And thanks again for posting.


I have been doing groups for about seven years almost exclusively in nursing homes with all levels of patient types and always with "general populations". It has therefore not been easy. That is I have not had specific groups for, say, weight loss or substance abuse.

All that said the beauty of AT is that it certainly always seems to give one a place to stay grounded. If I am not getting any response I just keep "teaching" it or I "go with the flow" until some topic comes up that has to do with feelings, which certainly doesn't take very long and teach from that moment.

I think you find that people are always interested in understanding feeling.

I treat a group much like I treat individual therapy, especially at the beginning. That is I teach a lot. I try and show that a lot of the problem is that people talk pass each other and in talking past each other they humiliate each other as they don't understand each other. The beauty of AT is that we can all understand a simple "alphabet soup" of words and from the common language go from there.


I wrote a pamphlet based on this idea of an alphabet of 26 simple words that everyone can understand and they are:

"Surprise, interest, doing, attack, thinking, confusion, anger, blame, distress, withdraw, feeling, moderate, evaluate, joy, pride, shame, drive, control, define, fear, self, emotion, other, disgust, avoid, dissmell."

So that is a place to start. Some times I have gone over these things fifty times. People are often limited, of course, in their capacities, but what are they helped by and often express in the end? They express that I was the only one that has ever actually tried to explain anything to them. I guess that has actually ever tried to respect their intelligence enough to teach them something about their emotions.

So in the end it comes down to what I think is the most powerful emotion and that is interest. Figure out how to show interest and model it. With the least functioning group I have found it is often simply showing up constantly and regularly and the content need not be much and often can't be much. Of course you show up and show "interest" and the more articulate they are the more you can do. Then there is a "tipping point" where you will, of course, get disasters in which the "intelligence" itself is an insurmountable barrier of "avoidance" that can destroy an entire group.

Again some beginning thoughts.

Thanks again.

Dr. Lynch

[drlynch]

MIKE,


1) Could you please say a little more about your understanding of "negative affect" and maybe give and example.

2) Please email me about the pamphlet. drbplynch@aol.com

Dr. Lynch