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Attending the meeting: David Bradford, Scott Bristol, Andrea Corney, Gary Dexter, Flo Hoylman, Paula Jones, Judith Noel, Carole Robin, Jack Sherwood, Mary Ann Huckabay, Mai Vu and Yifat Sharabi-Levine. (Notes by Yifat Sharabi-Levine)

The topic for this meeting was to analyze 6 T group scenarios and compare two different training styles. The first is more "cognitive" facilitative style and the second that is a more personal self-disclosing, "using-one's-reactions" style. We brainstormed thoroughly only on the first scenario. We realized that beyond personal style preferences, the interpretation of the facilitator about what is happening in the group and his/ her decision about what is the first priority to be handled, dictated the level( personal, group, interpersonal) and the style (cognitive vs. feeling/self disclosing) of the preferred intervention. Toward the end of the meeting there was agreement in the room that an effective facilitator should develop the whole range of intervention skills and to be able to choose the most effective one (in his/her eyes) to intervene in different situations. The process of brainstorming was rich and helped all of us consider different perspectives to look at the situation. We have decided to continue with this topic in our next meeting on January 4^th.

Open issues and things to consider regarding scenario # 1 (See scenario below):

Helen’s outburst and disclosure- Is she at risk? What is her emotional capacity to learn and participate in the T-group?
Mary’s suggestion to solve Helen’s problems
Fred- Facilitator tension
The group is moving fast (This is the first T group session) and there are safety and boundary implications.
Is there power dynamics between Fred and Helen? (Does each one try to use their own style to start the group?)
What should be the facilitator’s level of activity so early on (Frequency of interventions)? Some said that if the facilitator is active to begin with, it probably will speed up/accelerate the process. However, it might affect the participant ability “to learn how to learn” and figure things out by themselves.
Gender differences- If the facilitator is a man, saying nothing to Helen can create a “stonewall” effect that could be experienced negatively by women and may affect their future relationship. Women- few said that they will probably feel more need to react to a man’s outburst than to a woman’s.

Proposed Interventions:

People who perceived the situation as a power struggle between Helen and Fred and were concerned about being too active in the group so early on- leaned toward saying nothing and waiting.
People who perceived that Helen might be at risk and that it is important to acknowledge her feelings as well as creating a safe container with clear boundaries, leaned toward more self disclosing comment such as “I am touched to hear about the things that happening in your life. And to Mary, “I feel uncomfortable about your suggestion to try and solve those issues here, I don’t know that this is part of what we should do here nor if we are capable of doing so”.
People who wanted to give some acknowledgement to what is going on without being too directive leaned toward using a cognitive and group level intervention such as ”There is a lot going on here”.
People who preferred to comment on the interpersonal open issue in the room (Fred and facilitator dynamics), leaned toward opening it up with some apology and owning their earlier judgmental comments.

Scenario 1

It is the first session of the T-Group. The trainer started with some general comments around the theme of, “our task is to build a learning group where we can learn from each other.” This (ambiguous) statement was followed by some questions to the trainer about how they were to do this (which went nowhere) and then the usual initial awkward silence. Fred, one of the members suggested that they go around and introduce themselves. He started by explaining what he does and some general (relatively safe) comments about what he hopes to gain from this experience. This process went around the room in order with the same rather superficial introductions. About half-way through, the trainer said, turning to Fred, “I appreciate your trying to get us started” (and then turning to the group), :”but I wonder if this is the most meaningful way we can get to know each other?”

Fred sharply responded, “Well, what do you suggest!” Before the trainer could answer, Helen, a woman in her mid-40’s breaks in and in a shaky voice says, I’ll start. I was sent here by my boss because he thinks I have an attitude problem. What he doesn’t realize is that I’m going through a horrible time at home. My husband has told me that he wants a divorce and I don’t know how the kids and I are going to survive.” She then starts crying. Fred glowers at the trainer. Mary, sitting next to Helen, reaches out and puts her arm around her and says, “Maybe we can help you think through what you need to do.”

Our next meeting is Wed, Oct. 5th. There is a location change. It will be hosted by Carole Robin. Her address is 1544 Walnut Drive in Palo Alto [94303].

We will start with coffee at 1:30 to socialize. The session runs from 2 to 5:30ish when we have wine and cheese with further conversations.

The session will be led by Gary Dexter and the following is his description of the topic.

"I will be moderating what I expect to be a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion on research and T-groups. We all have an intuitive sense that great results are being produced for ourselves and our participants by the work we do...but where's the proof? Out of all the fascinating dynamics that occur in group, might particular issues be most productively explored? How? Who is doing research on T-groups now?
Why don't we hear much about it? Why aren't we doing it ourselves?
Should we do it? Should we nominate members not attending this discussion to begin the work? :-) Join us!"

As usual, we will start at 1:30 with informal socializing with our session starting at 2.

Topic: Pursuing deeper the issue of the impact of our sexual orientation to us personally and professionally.

The discussion we had at our last meeting was very rich and ended with energy to continue exploring additional aspects related to the topic of our sexual orientation. This could involve:
-- Our respective views of sexual orientation, gender, and sexuality and their relationship to our identities.
-- How the differences around sexual orientation play out amongst ourselves as individuals, facilitators and within our T-groups.

Hope to see all of you there.

[It takes about an hour and a half to get to Gary's place from Berkeley/San Francisco]

Attending our meeting was David Bradford, Scott Bristol, Andrea Corney, John Cronkite, Gary Dexter, Thoraya Halhoul, Flo Hoylman, Paula Jones, Tony Kortens, Leigh Morgan, Judith Noel, Carole Robin, Jack Sherwood and Yifat Levine -- our largest meeting thus far.

We started off by welcoming four new members, Leigh who had moved here from North Carolina and Andrea, John C. & Yifat who are new members to NTL.

The topic of the meeting was to look at gay, lesbian, transgender issues for us as trainers. We started by making the distinction between intimacy and sexuality and then responded to the Kinsey 7 pt. scale [from heterosexuality through bi-sexuality to homosexuality] on the following three dimensions:

      how do we define ourself
      what thoughts, feelings, attractions do we have
      what are our behaviors
[Which led to a couple of the straights saying how bland they felt!]

We then spent some time fully understanding different terms and dimensions to gender before turning to the issue of the impact for us in training groups and the dilemmas that could arise. When/how does one disclose being bi/gay/lesbian, responding to participants who may not be out, etc. One of the interesting points that came out is that the group that might feel most marginalized in a T-group is the person with fundamental religious beliefs who believes homosexuality is a sin? How does one honor that person's beliefs [and protect that person from rejecting] while still attending to the hurt that person's comments might cause?

In our discussion, we experienced the power of words and how easy it is to read more into comments -- and how easy to become emotionally hooked.

After wine, the discussion turned [yet again] even more personal. We decided that we had only begin to scratch the surface and while very valuable, we wanted to explore this more fully and at a more personal level at our next meeting.

That will be at Gary Dexter's in Sonoma on Wed. August 3. Directions will follow.

Hi all:

As some of your know, we couldn't recall who had agreed to lead the June 29 meeting, so I agreed to ask Judith if it was her. She says not, but suggests that Gary, Thoraya, Lanz, she and I collaborate - so this is an invitation to do so. The topic is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people and t-groups.

The frame I suggest is what happens in a t-group when G,L,B or T people or concerns are present? If the trainer is GLBT, what choices does she/he make? How does that affect co-trainer relationships? What happens if there are G, L, B or T participants (including different levels of choice about being known or out?) How do you manage homophobia or anti-GLBT behavior and attitudes, regardless of trainer orientation?

So that the queer folk aren't in the position of teachin' to the straight folk, I'm imagining more of an open dialog where we can raise all the questions that people have around this topic and have everyone come at it from their own perspective - sort of a shared responsibility model. First we all own our stuff, then we talk about it. I'm not wedded to this, but wanted to get the process started. Any and all thoughts any of you might have on a different or better way to come at this are most welcome. What do you think?

If you would like to be part of this collaboration, please let me know. What would be particularly valuable are any thoughts you have on preparation that group members can undertake - questions to think about, something useful to read.

Thanks - have a great weekend - PJ

Paula S. Jones

Report on Bay Area NTL meeting held Wednesday May 18, 2005

David Bradford, Lanz Lowen, Robert Brown, Paula Jones, Gary Dexter, Flo Hoylman and Jack Sherwood met at Carole Robin's for a discussion and exploration of boundaries.

We focused on how family of origin circumstances and issues influenced our own boundary setting and how this in turn affects us in T-group settings. Among the many topics we discussed were:

- what could and could not be talked about in our families and how this created boundaries we now want to push against in our T-group work.

- the relationship between safety and freedom to govern our own existence at an early age and the development of personal boundaries and how tightly we hold them

- a possible phenomenon that family of origin circumstances can drive people to extremes along a boundary continuum (completely open and "out there" at one end, and closed/tight/rigid at the other.) This lead to an interesting discussion of how personal development can be about moving personal boundaries toward the middle of this continuum (i.e. away from the extremes) and/or "re-setting" our own boundaries, and how T-groups offer a place for such experimentation

- the composition of the group we are entering and its norms and their effects on boundaries. We used our own NTL group to talk about this and discussed the way in which expectations we have of each other as well as "fluid" membership has affected our boundary setting in this group. We also talked about what it is like to be new to this group and concluded we might want to do a bit more in terms of helping new members understand our norms and agreements. We noted that we had never before discussed the issue of confidentiality. We agreed that people were free to report on their own experience and learning from group meetings but should show respect and sensitivity in repeating anything they had heard from others during one of our meetings. We then talked about how surfacing what we are doing and how we are doing in this group allowed us to become more conscious of our boundaries and where we have set them (individually and as a group).

- how to approach/work boundaries in groups as trainers. This involved an exploration of the need to both protect and move boundaries and to be aware of a "dance" that is always going on between the individual and the group in defining and setting boundaries-- for example in our group "openness" we can inadvertently push on an individual's personal boundary. Shuttling between group and intra-personal level work in groups are thus very useful in working boundary issues.

All in all a rich afternoon with a wonderful combination of intellectual exploration and personal sharing. Our next meeting is at Lanz's house 5601 Chelton Drive, Oakland 94611.

Carole Robin, Ph.D.

AGENDA

Our next meeting is this Wednesday, May 18th at Carole Robin's in Palo Alto. [1544 Walnut Drive, Palo Alto, 94303. (650) 325-8852] Please call her if you can make it.

Attending the April meeting were: Judith Noel, Kathleen Brown, Mai Vu, Thoraya Halhoul, Janet Thuesen, David Bradford, Scott Bristol, Bob Brown, Lanz Lowen, Gary Dexter and “Paske,” Janet’s new puppy.

After coffee & nibbles and a brief check-in, Mai Vu opened the discussion on “jealousy – one of the least researched emotions.” We spent quite a bit time differentiating between “jealousy” and “envy.” The following is a reflection of the discourse.

The discussion started with jealousy being only linked with some sort of sexual connotation, but we came to the point where we believed it did not have to be of a sexual nature, but always with a third party in the equation/relationship. It tends to trigger feelings of possessiveness, exclusion, competition, inadequacy, ego or fear . . . . and maybe fear of loss.

Envy deals with some of the same feelings but tends to be in a situation where you have an admiration/respect/positive regard for another person, quality or material possession.

Most people don’t tend to identify with the emotion of “jealousy” but attach words like “hurt,” “not meeting my needs,” “anger.” Only when pushed to delve deeper, does one recognize “jealousy.”

“Jealousy is a doorway which points us to what things we need to work on most for ourselves,” said a participant. If we choose not to go through the door, we can only remain with our anger, blame and hurt. We tend to point the finger at the other for the hurt, but it is a wound within us that has never healed. Whenever a situation arises that is similar in nature, it will trigger that old wound until it is resolved.

We touched briefly on the “other’s” (the one not feeling the jealousy) responsibility in the equation . . . . . perhaps to *create space, *not collude, *not take on the responsibility.

In the latter part of the session, we moved to the personal level to check to see if there was jealousy or envy experienced within the group. Several participants acknowledged that those feelings existed and time was spent on our own dynamics.

Finally, we talked about how to handle feelings of jealousy and envy in a T-group with a co-trainer [as either feeling it or being the recipient].

Thank you, Mai, for bringing this subject to the group. It was a fascinating discussion!

Our next meeting will be on May 18^th at Carole Robin’s in Palo Alto. The topic will be “dealing with boundaries” and led by Lanz.

AGENDA

Mai Vu will lead the next session on Jealousy [not just with friends/intimate others, but also with co-trainers and participants]. That meeting will be Wednesday, April 20th at Janet Thuesen's houseboat in Sausalito.

Participating in our monthly meeting were: David Bradford, Scott Bristol, Bob Brown, Gary Dexter, Collins Dobbs, Mary Ann Huckabay, Paula Jones, Lanz Lowen, Carole Robin, Craig Schuler and Mai Vu.

We tried something new in this session in that we tried to integrate the personal with the professional. After a brief check-in, Paula Jones led us through a design that came at the issue of diversity in a different way. She posed the question, "as a trainer, what groups do you have difficulty being objective about... and why?" With some embarrassment we "fessed up" to the groups that we might have negative (or positive -- which could also distort objectivity) reactions to. Some of these included..

older white males with power people from the military or with a military background beautiful women or men

white women who act disempowered ultra-conservative, right-wingers lawyers very rich who act entitled

born-again Christians "mystical/spiritual" co-trainers older Asian men those who act morally superior

12-step devotees men from male-dominant cultures those who act passive-aggressive

We then stated why they "hooked us" -- what it was in our background or personal feelings that made it difficult to see them as individuals.

The discussion then turned to various ways to deal with this when it occurred. While self-awareness was important, how to use one's co-trainer, whether/when to bring up your reaction in the group. Also, times when these reactions actually provided a way to make a connection with the other. Another interesting point that came out was that these reactions weren't necessary only upon first contact, but can arise (and then go away) any time in the group's life.

After we opened the wine, the conversation turned to the more personal question of whether members had some of these reactions to others in the room. After admitting that had been the case during the discussion, we then explored what made it difficult to raise it. "That would get us into T-grouping and once into that, we would never get out." We decided to try the norm of seeing if we could dip in to explore the immediate interpersonal aspect of the issue and then move out to continue conceptual exploration of the topic.

This turned out to be one of the more fruitful meetings we have had and decided that we would try and continue the format of integrating personal issues/reactions/disclosures with conceptual/professional explorations.

Our next Bay Area NTL Meeting will be next Tuesday, March 1st at David's house in Berkeley [directions attached]

Topic: We will be looking at training issues involving minority groups that are more frequent in the Bay Area [Latino/Latina, Gay/Lesbian, Asian/Asian-American]. How does this impact our training style and what issues come up for us personally <<Directions-Garber.doc>> in training with these groups? This session will attempt to integrate the personal and professional sides of our self. [Session led by Paula Jones and David Bradford].

1:30 Assemble for Coffee, Tea and Cake
2:00-5:30 Session
5:30- wine/cheese and informal discussion

The meeting took place at Nan Wydler’s house on the peninsula. In attendance were: NanWydler, Craig Schuler, David Bradford, Scott Bristol, Flo Hoylman, Jack Sherwood, Janet Theusen, and Collins Dobbs

- The observation that the group becomes more lively when we do slip into “T Grouping

- Conclusion: We can act as our own facilitators for now. We can and do use the 2^nd half of the meeting when we want to.

- Suggestion; open the group up more, the group can expand into blank space and is responsible for its own facilitating.

Topic: Expanding our notion of diversity [The salient groups in the Bay Area tend to be Asian/Asian-American, Latino/Latina & Gay Lesbian. What implications does this have for how we train, the sorts of issues that come up in T-groups and the sort of work we need to do on our self? (The session will attempt to integrate conceptual exploration with self-exploration).

Notes from NTL Bay Area Meetings 2005

Nov 30, 2005 (Jack and Flo's House Boat)