Tony White

I ran an all day workshop last week and as I look back on it now I did a bit of an unusual thing. In the morning session I ran a demonstration therapy group using the redecision method of therapy. This means the group members who attend the workshop are also the clients in the group. So people get an opportunity to get some personal therapy and to see me demonstrate how I do such group therapy.

In the afternoon the same set up was used except it was group therapy using the Relational approach. This is a very different style of group therapy and this is the part that I have thought about. I cannot recall ever doing such a thing in the past or seeing such a thing being done. That is where you have two very different styles of group therapy done with the same group members one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It was not until afterwards that I realised what was being done in this sense.

It truly did demonstrate the different methods, assumptions of the therapy, the therapeutic goals that the different styles set out to achieve. In both methods people did gain personal insights that they had not done so before and reported to achieve therapeutic gains. That is one of the things that impacted on me was how two very different methods still worked on the same group of people.

Some of the theory behind why the workshop was constructed as it was. In the morning when doing the redecision group therapy of course I used the redecison therapy techniques like two chair. This is shown in the diagram below

In this situation there are three components in the therapy setting. The client, the therapist and the techniques.
At point 1 the therapist directs and facilitates the client doing the technique which is point 2. There is also another thing going on at the same time and that is point 3, or the relationship between the client and the therapist. One has both the techniques and the relationship going on at the same time.

As we know in the literature there is quite a large group who state that it is the relationship between the client and the therapist that really has the curative powers. The client doing the techniques is good but it is point 3 that really has the profound effects.

If that is the case then lets try one other thing. Lets have therapy without any techniques. Lets have therapy where there is just the relationship. This is what happened in the afternoon Relational group therapy as is shown in the diagram below

In this instance the techniques are discarded and the therapist and client simply relate.

Overall a quite unusual and unique therapeutic experience I think having the combination of those two in the circumstances that they were presented.

Graffiti