1_introduction to group dynamics

7/27/2019 1_Introduction to Group Dynamics

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Group dynamics is the study of groups, and also a general term

for group processes.

Relevant to the fields of psychology, sociology, and

communication studies

A group is two or more individuals who are connected to each

other by social relationships.

Because they interact and influence each other, groups develop

a number of dynamic processes that separate them from arandom collection of individuals.

These processes include norms, roles, relations, development,

need to belong, social influence, and effects on behavior.

Introduction


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Types of Groups

Congregations, workgroups, unions,

professional

associations

Larger, less intimate, moregoal-focused groups typical

of more complex societies

Secondarygroups

Families, close

friends, tight-knit

peer groups, gangs,

elite military squads

Small, long-term groups

characterized by face-to-

face interaction and high

levels of cohesiveness,

solidarity, and member

identification

Primary

groups

ExamplesCharacteristicsType ofGroup


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Study groups, friendship

cliques in a workplace,

regular patrons at a bar

Emerge when interacting individuals

gradually align their activities in a

cooperative system of

interdependence.

Self-organizing

Waiting lines (queues),

crowds, mobs, audiences,

bystanders

Emergent, unplanned groups that

arise when external, situational

forces set the stage for people to jointogether, often only temporarily, in a

unified group

Circumstantial

Groups that form spontaneously as individuals find themselves

repeatedly interacting with the same subset of individuals over time

and settings

Emergent groups

Study groups, small

businesses, expeditions,

clubs, associations

Planned by one or more individuals

who remain within the group

Founded

Production lines, militaryunits, task forces, crews,

professional sports teams

Planned by individuals or authoritiesoutside the group.Concocted

Deliberately formed by the members themselves or by an external

authority, usually for some specific purpose or purposes

Planned groups

ExamplesCharacteristicsType of Group


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Women, Asian

Americans, physicians,

U.S. citizens, New

Yorkers

Aggregations of individuals who are

similar to one another in terms of

gender, ethnicity, religion, or

nationality.

Social

categories

Crowds, audiences,

clusters of bystanders

Aggregations of individuals that

form spontaneously, last only a brief

period of time, and have verypermeable boundaries

Weak

associations

Teams, neighborhood

associations

Work groups in employment

settings and goal-focused groups ina variety of nonemployment

situations

Task groups

Families, romantic

couples, close friends,street gangs

Small groups of moderate duration

and permeability characterized bysubstantial levels of interaction

among the members, who value

membership in the group

Intimacy

groups

ExamplesCharacteristicsType of

Group


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Gustav Le Bon: was a French social psychologist whose seminal study, The

Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind(1896) led to the development of group

psychology.

Sigmund Freuds: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, (1922)

based on a critique of Le Bon's work, led to further development in theories of

group behavior in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Kurt Lewin: is commonly identified as the founder of the movement to study

groups scientifically. He coined the term group dynamicsto describe the way

groups and individuals act and react to changing circumstances.

Chief Theorists


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Wilfred Bion: studied group dynamics from a psychoanalytic

perspective. Many of Bion's findings were reported in his published

books, especially Experiences in Groups. The Tavistock Institute has

further developed and applied the theory and practices developed by

Bion.

Bruce Tuckman: Four stage model.

S. H Foulkes: proposed the ideas of group matrix, group mind and

groups four levels of communication.


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Group dynamics form a basis for group therapy, often with therapeutic

approaches that are often formed of groups such as family therapy and

the expressive therapies.

Politicians and salesmen may use their knowledge of the principles of

group dynamics to aid their cause.

Increasingly, group dynamics are becoming of particular interest

because of online, social interaction made possible by the internet.

Organizational observation and consultancy

Applications


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French revolution (1789-1799)

Interested in why mobs (large groups) went out of control.

Good people, when part of a mob, could act as animals.

A group mind is created that swallows peoples judgment (Ashe, Mirror

Neurons).

Members give up their superego to the mob leader, letting him to set their

moral standards.

All people regress in all groups.

Adolf Hitler, Mussolini were very much influenced by his ideas a major

feature of democracy was the manipulation of the mass mind by media and

advertising.

1- LeBon (1841-1931)

Crowd Psychology (1895)


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A major feature of democracy is the manipulation of the mass mind by

media and advertising.

A knowledge of the psychology of crowds is not to govern them, but not to

be too much governed by them.

The convictions of crowds assume those characteristics of blind

submission, fierce intolerance, and the need of violent propaganda which

are inherent in the religious sentiment, and it is for this reason that it may be

said that all their beliefs have a religious form.


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2- Freud (1856-1939)

Group Psychology and Analysis of the Ego (1922)

the scientific myth of the father of the primal hordehe was the ideal

of each one of them, at once feared and honoredThese many

individuals eventually banded together, killed him and cut him to pieces.

None of the group of victors could take his place, or if, one of them did,

the battles began afresh, until they understand that they must all

renounce their fathers heritage. They then formed the totemic -

community of brothers, all with equal rights and united by the totemprohibitions which were to preserve and expiate the memory ofthe murder.


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Two key ideas from field theory:

Interdependence of fate: Here the basic line of argument is that groups come into

being in a psychological sense not because their members necessarily are similar

to one another (although they may be); rather, a group exists when people in it

realize their fate depends on the fate of the group as a whole. This is how Lewin

put it when discussing the position of Jews in 1939.

Interdependence of task: Interdependence of fate can be a fairly weak form of

interdependence in many groups, argued Lewin. A more significant factor is where

there is interdependence in the goals of group members. In other words, if the

groups task is such that members of the group are dependent on each other for

achievement, then a powerful dynamic is created.

3- Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)


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4- Bion (1897-1979)

Experiences in Groups (1961)

The apparent difference between group psychology and

individual psychology is an illusion.

The central position in group dynamics is occupied by the more primitive

mechanisms which Melanie Klein has described as peculiar to the paranoid-

schizoid and depressive positions.

According to Klein, our minds are always in one or the other of two positions.

One involves extreme splits, part object relations, brittle guilt, blaming, hating,

scape-goating, paranoia and the tendency to aggression and fighting, whether

verbal or physical. The other involves granting that life is not just extremes but

consists of things all mixed up, some good, some bad: the middle ground. In this

frame of mind guilt is not punitive but reparative. One is not in a manic state but

a rather subdued , depressive (not to say depressed) one. live and let live.


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The group approximates too closely, in the minds of the individuals

composing it, to very primitive phantasies about their mothers breast.

Dynamics of the group is therefore perturbed by psychotic anxieties

and mechanisms.

At the heart of his ideas about groups is the observation that although

groups are normally set up to pursue sensible and realistic goals -- he

calls this the work group -- they inevitably from time to time fall into

madness, which he calls basic assumption functioning. Bion specified

three types of basic assumption functioning - dependency, pairing and

fight-flight.


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Bion puts groups into two categories: work groups (getting things

done) and basic assumption groups (acting out primitive fantasies and

preventing things from getting done)..

Basic Assumptions:

- Dependency (D)

- Fight and Flight (F)

- Pairing (P)


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The dependency basic assumption is a defense against depressive anxieties

and is operative when group members behave as if only someone else, usually the

group analyst, had the power, ability and knowledge to satisfy their needs. Group

members experience themselves as weak, ineffectual and incapable of helping each

other.

The underlying fear is that their greed will engulf the therapist and result in their

being abandoned. To defend against the anxiety and guilt connected with their

potential destruction of the therapist (i.e., their mother at an unconscious level), the

patients believe that the therapist is an inexhaustible, omniscient and omnipotent

figure who will always be there for them and who will always have the answers.

Example: Church, Mosque, Department


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In the fight or flight basic assumption, group members behave as if

there were some external threat, the response to which can result only

in a fight or flight. Paranoid fantasies abound and the group becomes a

fearful and non-reflective place, with action being thought of as the only

solution. The group can feel united against the perceived threat and

does all it can to maintain the badness as external. In this basic

assumption, the group can be understood as having regressed to the

paranoidschizoid position formulated by Klein.

Example: Army, Departments


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The pairing basic assumption can be seen to operate when two members pair

up and become involved in long and intense discussions; other group members

behave in a way that facilitates the exchange and make no attempt to discuss their

own problems. A pervasive atmosphere of optimism and hopefulness develops,

along with a buoyant attitude that almost anything is possible. This may be viewed

as a form of collective manic defense against the group's anxieties about its own

destructiveness; the unspoken and usually unconscious belief is that the two

people involved will create something beautiful and enduring that will passively

transform the other members.

Example: Scientists in lab, Department


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Dependency


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Fight and Flight


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Pairing


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Link

At the heart of Bions ideas about groups is the observation that

although groups are normally set up to pursue sensible and realisticgoals -- he calls this the work group -- they inevitably from time to time

fall into madness, which he calls basic assumption functioning.

Link (L) and breaking/attacking the link (i.e. Mervat and others)


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Bruce Tuckman (1965) proposed the four-stage model calledTuckman's Stages for a group.

- Forming (pretending to get on or get along with others);

- Storming (letting down the politeness barrier and trying to get down to theissues even if tempers flare up );

- Norming (getting used to each other and developing trust and

productivity);

- Performing (working in a group to a common goal on a highly efficient

and cooperative basis).

- Adjourning: Dissolution. It entails the termination of roles, the completion

of tasks. Mourning the loss sometimes felt by former participants.

4- Bruce Tuckman (1938- )

Four-stage Model (1965)


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5- Foulkes (1948-1975)

Group Analysis (1968)

Psychoanalysis in the group:

- Man is a social being.

- In a group, members has transferences to other group members as well as the

group leader.

- Resistance occurs as members use a variety of ego defenses to porotect against

anxiety.

- The group members often operate as a whole.


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Four levels of communication:

1- Current level: what is the reality level of the group-the setting of the group, the

identity of leader and members, the circumstances of the group meeting.

2- Transference level: member to member, member to leader, member to group

3- Projective level: What are the primitive part objects that members project on

one another? Is one members anger seen in another and not in himself? Or his

sexuality? Or love? Is someone being scape-goated: all the members projecting

their despicable parts onto one person?

4- Primordial level: What about the collective unconscious of the group? What are

the archetypes shared image that no one talks about? Feminine and masculine

images?


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Dear Bob.

We assume that a group is a complete being of its own, that is comparable to the

human being in having consciousness, unconsciousness and growth stages. Here,

we will deal with the concept of Group Unconsciousness.

Our therapy groups are open continuous ones that permit patients to join the group

at any time or stage of the therapeutic process, i.e. a group session may contain

patients who are group members for years and patients who are group members

for days or months.

There is something we noticed through participation, observation and analysis of

several group sessions that contained new patients. Most of those patients could

easily get involved in the ongoing group work, as follows:

Letter to Hinshelwood (2006)


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- They could easily accept group rules, group norms and group values.

- They could easily speak the same group language and apply the same group

terminology.

- They could easily share feelings and thoughts with older group members.

- They could easily reach the worked-inlevel of awareness in the group session(s).

- They could easily join the growth stage of the group as a whole with all of its

characteristics.

- New patients who joined group sessions in the later stages of the group showed

much less resistance in applying the above items than new patients who joined

group sessions in the earlier stages of the group therapy training program.


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It seems that the group as a whole has an unconscious

apparatus/system/entity/space of its own. This apparatus collectively stores all of

group's past experience, memories and work (Collective Group Unconsciousness).

This unconscious space starts to exist from the first group session and it continues

to grow/develop/widen throughout the sessions that follow.

It draws its material from many sources, of them:

Leader: his therapeutic experience, his personal mode of existence, his own

unconscious processes,

Patients: their psychopathological experiences, their therapeutic experiences, their

own unconscious processes,Trainees: their training experiences, their sharing mode, their own unconscious

processes,..

Group as a whole: its rules, norms, values, general atmosphere, goals,

orientations, dominating therapeutic techniques, past and current stages of

development..


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This space seems to have some criteria, which became more obvious as the

therapy group goes on:

Size: in the early group sessions, CGU was small sized. In later sessions, it is

larger.

Configuration: in the early group sessions, CGU was poorly configured. In latersessions, it is more and more well-configured.

Content: in the early group sessions, CGU contained less material. In later

sessions, it is contains more material. Any new member who joins the group adds

something to the (CGU). Any new group session also adds something to it.

Accessibility: in the early group sessions, CGU was hardly accessible by new

members. In later sessions, it is more easy to be accessed.Flexibility: in the early group sessions, new patients showed more resistance to

accept the CGU material. In later sessions, new patients showed much less

resistance to accept CGU material.


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When a new patient joins the group, an interaction between his personal

unconsciousness and the Collective Group Unconsciousness takes place. The

results of this interaction depend mostly on the above variables (criteria) of the

CGU. These results determine the following:

- Degree of digestion and assimilation of past group experiences that was notattended by the new member and which are stored in the CGU.

- Degree of being involved in the group work.

- Degree of accepting group language, terminology, norms,

- Degree of feeling contained in the group.

At its extreme or near, this interaction results in making a new group member feels,thinks and behaves as if he is an old one because he could easily digest and

assimilate the contents of the Collective Group Unconsciousness. He can then

speak the same language, apply same terms and accept same rules, norms and

values.


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Dear Mohammad,

About your idea of a common group unconscious. I think this is a very important

idea.

In British group therapy theory there are two versions of this. Foulkes talks about

the commun icati on matr ix which arises in a group. Bion calls it the 'groupmental i ty ' and he defines three basic assumptions around which the unconsciousattitudes and behavior orbit. For myself, I tend to think of it as the group culture and

relate it more to sociological theory. That is to say, there are attitudes shared

unconsciously in a group.

In American group therapy, it is a little different (e.g. Yalom). There is much more

respect for the individual who seems to retain individuality more robustly. Different

from Freud and psychoanalytic theory, which suggest that the individual changes -

radically sometimes - when entering a group.

Reply


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Jungian psychology has another view - the collective unconscious. If people

change when they join a group because of unconscious things in the group, it leads

to a question: Does change in group therapy mean a person has really changed

from treatment, or is he just different because he is influenced by the unconscious

when in that group? How could that question be answered?

best wishes,Bob


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