Relational group catharsis : Tony White

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Sunday, 15 March 2009

Relational group catharsis

I had a bit of a catharsis today at the all day workshop. Or more correctly it was sort of a re-catharsis. In the afternoon we ran a relational type of group therapy process. In these groups no usual type of therapy is done in the sense of there being clients and two therapists running a group by doing therapy on the clients.

It is by and large a leaderless group and people work with the others or relate their relational experiences to each other. Now let me tell you, it is quite a challenge to be the leader in a leaderless group. None the less I think my co-therapist and I achieved it to at least a satisfactory degree.

Do all groups have a leader?

The good part about being a leader in a leaderless group is you get to be like the clients at least to some extent. My co-leader reported having a emotional reaction about hearing of the death of someone whom she had known. At the lunch break I had actually informed her of the death of this person who we had both met on a few occasions. He was a psychotherapist of some note.

She reported to the therapy how he had been a very nice man and she had developed a good affection for him and thus was sad at hearing of his death. I resonated to this as my experience of him was quite different as I know he had been quite unkind to some others I had known. So I did not like him much at all.

This left me with a juxtaposition. I felt I wanted to state my feelings about him to the other group members but I did not want to adversely effect her emotional experience and reporting. So doing the relational thing I related my juxtaposition and stated what I just reported here. After subsequent statements by her and other group members I then related an experience in my earlier life.

I had a very good friend of many years whose father died recently and I attended the funeral. At the funeral people got up and talked about him and stated what a kind and good man he was. Well he was neither. He was a very emotionally abusive man who has damaged all four of his children significantly. At the funeral I felt like someone needed to get up and tell the truth but then as I watched everyone and I had a catharsis - “No it is not necessary to tell the truth about this man who died!”. My good friend and his family don’t need to hear or tell the truth as he is now dead and they just need to get the memory of him in a good place in their minds. At this realisation I felt a great relief.

The same happened today in the relational group. I felt the relief and release as it dawned on me that the truth does not need to be told. This catharsis is good stuff.

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Comments

This post is so relative to what I'm going through right now Tony. I'm in the process of some blog posts about my father, and how my aunt is challenging some things I knew about him for my entire life. He died 11 years ago, and these things don't matter to me, but she is pushing her stories on me like it's the most important thing in the world to her that I believe her. I haven't gotten to that part of the story on my blog yet, but it's coming.

I was upset at first by her stories, but then I realized that it DOESN'T MATTER! I'm just afraid of damaging my relationship with my aunt.

Posted by: Harriet | Sunday, 15 March 2009

I cant write much as I still have loads to do for work tomorrow. I just took a quick break - read this post - and what jumped in my mind I wanted to share.

I agree, the truth doesnt need to be told at times.

My thinking to add is also the truth is also relative. In that your truth and someone else's truth may be very different, and neither of you liars.

Posted by: Kahless | Monday, 16 March 2009

Hi Tony,

I thought this was a really powerful post, maybe it's related to the emphasis that the relational approach gives to the therapist's subjectivity?

Best wishes,

Nick

Posted by: Nick | Monday, 16 March 2009

As annoying as this post is to me Tony, your point is very tangible. Some things leave such a dreadful taste in the mouth don't they?

I don't see a problem in allowing people to believe their thoughts on people, places and/or things during a time of grieving. After all, like Kahless said - there are so many different perspectives on most things.

Tony i just deleted quite a bit of writing. I'm going to leave this comment right here.

Today is Monday and it's going to be a good day! Yay!

Posted by: roses | Monday, 16 March 2009

Yes Nick there certainly was plenty of subjectivity being put out into the intersubjective space by the various group members.

There were two women in the group who reported what I have heard others report in Relational groups that I have run. Basically they are saying that it is frightening and exciting to be afforded the opportunity to discover and disclose their Child ego state.

These people tend to be quite defended people and thus I can understand their comment and would see the relational approach as being most useful for this individual.

It seems also necessary to acknowledge that as with all psychotherapies one size does not fit all. If I had used a relational approach with the men I counselled in prison, I would have been told in no uncertain terms, that I was some kind of faggot and they would have got up walked out and I would never have seen them again.

The relational group was powerful for me Nick
Cheers

Tony