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Martin Luther King¹

Enthusiasm for growth groups and their philosophy of self-actualization can dull awareness of the need to eliminate social evils. It can diminish a sense of social responsibility precisely because the goal -- individual growth -- is so important. But, if enthusiasm for individual-actualization is misused as an excuse for privitism, the long-range results will be growth-stifling for everyone on the planet.

Releasing the people dynamic in individuals, awakening unused potentialities, and enlivening intimate relationships are all tremendously important -- but not the total task. For while this is being accomplished with ten people, a thousand will have their dreams of a full life mangled by racism, poverty, pollution, social injustice, political tyranny, and the population crush. Individual growth is short-lived unless institutional changes undergird personal change. We must work to produce personal growth that will energize social change, and social change that will nurture and support personal growth.

The new life-power produced in groups must be hooked to action for social change. Growth groups need not be used as psychological fiddling while the world burns. They can contribute to a people-serving society by generating a robust sense of social responsibility. Because they can combine growth and action objectives, growth groups constitute a major resource for social change.

A Unified Model of Growth-Change

Here is a unified model of the interrelated spheres of activity of growth and change agents.

Which change/growth methods are useful in each sphere of this target? Education, counseling, psychotherapy, and growth groups can produce change in individuals (circle 1). Relationship-oriented counseling methods (couple marriage counseling, family therapy) and growth groups are viable instruments of change within the intimate relationships of circle 2. In circle 3 (the supportive relationships just beyond the family) and circle 4 (other small groups), dynamic education, group therapy, and growth groups are effective methods. Changes in circle 5 (larger, more impersonal organizations ) and circle 6 ( the systems beyond the local community) may occur through educational persuasive approaches, but often they require the use of political methods.

Personal growth, we have seen, occurs in relationships where there is both caring (acceptance, relatedness) and confrontation (with reality, the consequences of one's behavior, etc.). All change activity involves varying ratios of these two elements. Growth groups aimed at holding these in even balance are effective in the smaller systems ( circles 1 through 4 ). Effecting change in larger systems (circles 5 and 6) and between systems usually involves a greater use of confrontation in the form of political and economic power,

Any social system, by definition, is more than the sum of its parts. Families, groups, and organizations have identities and internal dynamics which mark them as unique social organisms. Operating in such organisms are forces ( called "group dynamics") which are more than a composite of the forces motivating individual members. To improve institutions, methods which take these dynamics into account must be used. Change within any system depends on interaction with other systems. On the target of systems (above), change in one circle is more likely to occur and be permanent if the systems on one or both sides also change. To illustrate, individual growth is more likely to occur and be sustained if the family also changes constructively; family changes are more likely to occur and be sustained if the extended family changes to support them; growth in all three is more likely to occur and be sustained if the institutions of society are growth-oriented. Movement toward a person-enhancing world community requires simultaneous action for change in each sphere on the target.

Growth Groups: Instruments of Social Change

Social change activities aim at improving our institutions so they will serve our needs more fully. John Gardner, former head of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, states the challenge: `'The true task is to design a society (and institutions) capable of continuous change, continuous renewal, continuous responsiveness to human need."² In creating such a need-satisfying society, growth groups play an important role.

The process of social change includes five steps.³ Here are some ways growth groups can help implement these:

Step 1: Recruitment and Training of an Action Task Force -- The most efficient instrument for social change is a trained action group with a realistic and specific change target. To change any organization requires team effort. Growth group methods are useful in training the team.

(a) Awakening awareness of the need for action: Team members are more likely to persist when the going gets rough if they are motivated by, an awareness of the suffering caused by the injustice they are fighting. Firsthand confrontation with the victims of social and economic oppression can awaken this crucial awareness.

This model of learning is the experience-reflection-conceptualization-action approach. Beginning with the swirl of feelings, ideas, and impressions from the encounter, the small group encourages critical reflection and sharing of feelings; this may lead to the discovery of principles and action-goals implicit in the experience. Without the growth group, anxiety from direct encounters with injustice-bred rage often produces defensiveness rather than openness to new understanding.

An important aspect of growth which groups can facilitate is an awareness of one's own hidden prejudices. A training group of Caucasian clergymen and mental health professionals used this awareness exercise:

Debriefing revealed that many of the participants had become aware of race-related feelings -- shock, fear, expectation of rejection, vulnerability, confusion, inferiority as a Black, relief at being White again, and guilt about these responses.⁵ This group was relatively free of conscious prejudices and was dedicated to racial justice. Yet if their hidden feelings had not been discovered and dealt with, they could have sabotaged their best efforts at social change.

This exercise is useful for gaining awareness of other attitudinal blind spots:

These self-confrontations through fantasy offer opportunities for changing relationship-damaging attitudes through group interaction. The world of many people is one of walls without windows. This approach opens windows of communication through the walls within and between us.

(b) Equipping change agents with skills: Social actionists often stumble over their own ineptness in communication and relationships, and their ambivalence about risk-taking and aggressiveness.

Interpersonal skill training in growth groups is only part of preparation for effective social action. It is, however, an essential and often-neglected part. (Because of the overlapping of skills required in personal caring and in social action, it is productive to train persons for both activities in the same groups. This was one finding of a pilot project involving fifteen lay training groups.) (The project was funded by the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation at the School of Theology, Claremont, Calif. 1970-71.)

(c) Team Building: To work together efficiently, an action task force needs a sturdy sense of mutual openness and trust. A sense of solidarity is essential when the flack begins to fly -- from vested interests which resist changes threatening to their privileges. Awareness and communication exercises in the early phases of an action-growth group are useful in team-building. Both interpersonal relationship marathons and urban "plunges" (a weekend in the ghetto) increase group cohesiveness dramatically in training laymen for social action. An action group should operate with person-respecting methods so that it contributes to its members' growth as it accomplishes its social change objectives. Shared decision-making, collaborative planning, frequent evaluation, and replanning based on this feedback are examples of such methods.

Training groups in twenty-eight churches constituted "Project Laity," designed to help laymen become more involved in the structures and decisions of their communities. The twelve groups which completed training demonstrated that "the development of trust emerges from the confrontation of conflict" within the group.⁶ Groups which avoided facing their internal conflict developed much less intimacy and trust. Only where trust developed did groups engage in significant social action. Without such a base, it is almost impossible for most individuals even to conceive of themselves as potentially effective in solving social problems. Participants in the twelve groups completing the training pointed to personal growth resulting from freedom of communication, self-expression, and mutual support -- as the major satisfaction they derived.

Step 2: Understanding the problem and deciding on action goals. Obtaining and interpreting information about social problems are essential aspects of social change in which the small group should be involved. Collecting information often involves direct exposure to problems; this tends to reinforce motivation to take constructive action. One social action group in New York, as a result of the shocking facts about living conditions learned during a door-to-door survey in a slum area, became "fired up" about the need for low-cost housing. Understanding complex social problems (including resources and resistance to change) is best achieved by utilizing the group's total brain-power and experience in subcommittees with specific tasks. As understanding emerges in the group process, alternative action goals will become apparent. Decision-making about which goal(s) to implement should involve the whole group; otherwise it is unlikely that participants will support the action with gut-level commitment. If a project is to "fly," differences of opinion among task force members must be faced and discussed openly until areas of agreement are found.

Step 3: Formulating action strategy. Decisions about how to accomplish the goals, how to use resources, acquire allies, and divide responsibilities should also be made via the group process. Everyone must know that his views are valued by the group and that he is "in" on developing the plans he will be asked to implement. Growth in the ability to work as a team toward shared goals occurs as the group uses person-respecting methods at each stage.

Step 4: Action. During the action phase, it is important to maintain open communication among task force members so that misunderstandings, duplication of efforts, and working at cross-purposes will not impede effectiveness. Frequent opportunities to communicate and resolve conflicts within the team are essential.

When social-change goals involve building bridges between estranged groups, confrontation methods are useful. Racial confrontation groups have been used widely by schools, churches, and police departments. Several high schools in Portland sponsored three interracial encounter weekends at a center overlooking the Columbia River. Led by a psychologist, the youth, teachers, and graduate students spent most of the weekends in confrontation groups of fifteen. Various trust and communication exercises were used. According to reports from the schools, the aim of the project -- to reduce racial tensions by building trust and communication -- seemed to have been realized.

A twenty-four-hour confrontation marathon was co-led by Price Cobbs and George Leonard for fourteen persons including a White policeman, a Black welfare mother, a Black Vietnam veteran, a well-to-do White matron, and a Black Panther. The early hours were dominated by the Blacks, demanding honesty from each other -- "getting the brothers together."

There was no attempt to "integrate" the group. "Let the blacks get blacker, the whites whiter, the browns browner. Let every man be himself in full." When this occurs and the group has gone through the anger and denunciation, a spontaneous outpouring of love follows. A Black Panther pins his "I'm Black and Proud" button on a White doctor (who had shown an unusual amount of soul), proclaiming him an "honorary nigger." Application of learnings outside the group is stressed: "If something is learned, if a heart is changed, we urge the change be reflected on the job, in the community, in politics."

The target picked by one Project Understanding team was developing racial understanding and awareness in elementary education in two suburban school districts. In-service training series for teachers (with academic credit from a state university) were held; these included:

This approach awakens awareness of the problems faced by minorities and nurtures the emergence of a person-respecting White identity based on self-esteem.⁸

Growth groups are also useful for interrupting the vicious cycle of individual and social problems. Project ENABLE(Education and Neighborhood Action for Better Living Environment) trained some two hundred indigenous nonprofessionals and two hundred professionals in group family life education and neighborhood action methods for use with low-income families. The goal was to eliminate the effects of chronic poverty on families -- effects which tend to perpetuate the poverty cycle. Some eight hundred parents' groups were established in sixty-two communities, involving fifteen thousand low-income parents. Discussion in the parents' groups centered on their children, community facilities, their own adequacy as parents, how to communicate with their children, control their own emotions in handling them, and raise them to be law-abiding citizens. Project ENABLE helped families learn how to take initiative and make decisions in matters affecting their welfare. The parents worked together on some three hundred neighborhood improvement projects aimed at getting better housing, recreational facilities, police protection, health care, and closer relations with schools and welfare programs. This project shows that personal growth and social action objectives must be integrated in groups designed to help persons extricate themselves from the web of chronic poverty. It demonstrates that "poor families can be helped to overcome isolation and despair by solving difficult family and community problems together."⁹

Step 5: Evaluation and restrategizing. Social action teams should evaluate their goals/strategies/actions with the openness and honesty which characterize growth groups. Maximum learning from both successes and failures occurs in such an atmosphere. Reformulation of goals and restrategizing develop out of the group evaluative process.

The action training center in a Pacific Northwest city sponsored a series of courses on strategies for urban social action. Several task groups evolved from these; their goal was to raise the level of concern on the city council by working to elect candidates aware of urban problems. After the election (in which the goals were largely achieved), the action training center sponsored a "weekend away" for those who had been intensely involved. The objectives were to reflect on the recent election, decide what goals to seek next, plan strategy, and replenish energies for the new effort.

Intergroup Polarization and Communication

Social change often involves conflicts and communication problems between various groups, each with its own identity, values, commitments, goals, and power dynamics. It is essential, therefore, to be aware of the dynamics of intergroup conflict. The following communication exercise can be productive in the training or the action steps of social change. It is effective with any two groups committed to contrasting values. Here is how it is used in training adult leaders for youth growth groups.

The training group is divided in half; those on one side are told:

Those on the other side are told:

After a pause to let each side get inside the roles, the leader says: "I invite you to turn your chairs toward the other group . . . Now will you adults tell these young people the things that really matter to you." As the "adults" talk to the "youth," the leader lists the values they mention (on newsprint or a blackboard). If the "youth" are in their roles, they'll take only a few minutes of what usually registers as condescending, self-righteous adult pronouncements. If they don't begin to talk back spontaneously, after a few minutes, the leader invites them to "tell these adults how it is as you see it." The "youth" values are listed beside those of the "adults."

The temperature of the exchange usually soars. Before long, each side is "lobbing hand grenades," as one participant put it. After the polarization has increased and the verbal battle has escalated, the leader interrupts, asking those on either side how they are feeling. Frequently present are anger at not being heard or understood, alienation, and the impulse to attack more vigorously.

After debriefing, the sides are reversed. The leader describes the two roles again, and the exchange about "what's really important" continues, usually with polarization in reverse. After awhile this phase is debriefed thoroughly. The anger level is lowered as the process is discussed. Then the leader asks: "Are there other ways to communicate -- ways that might result in more messages getting through?" Back in their second roles, group members try to build bridges rather than barriers. Coaching from the leader may be necessary -- e.g., "Try stating how you feel . . . without making a disguised attack." or "Could you let the other side know you hear what they're saying?" Continue until some success in connecting across the youth-adult communication chasm is achieved.( Dividing "youth" and "adults" into mixed groups of four to six, during part of this exercise, lets them experience the striking differences between larger group-to-group and more intimate person-to-person communication.)

This exercise is useful in adult and youth workshops and in adult-youth growth groups. When the two groups are actually present, skilled facilitators are needed to coach both sides in communication skills. Take plenty of time to work through and learn from the rich, powerful feelings stirred up by this exercise. Whenever possible, the technique should be employed at the start of a several-day laboratory session in conflict-resolution or communication so that the groups can move beyond polarization.

There are some learning-growth experiences which emerge from this process: ( 1 ) The group experiences the value-gulf alienating two conflicting groups. (2) It participates in the powerful experience of group polarization and the kinds of communication which produce it -- e.g., attacking, not listening, "telling" the other side, we're-right-you're-wrong messages, etc. ( 3) The role reversal develops awareness of the important values on both sides of the gulf and awareness of one's own ambivalence regarding the two value worlds. (4) Participants can discover and practice styles of communication that reduce polarization and increase understanding -- owning and expressing one's own needs rather than trying to convert the other, listening with understanding, etc. (5) If the group learns these bridge-building skills, it can break out of the win-lose struggle and achieve a degree of difference-respecting, collaborative intergroup relationships.

Motivating Adults to Action

Without glamorizing the motives of youth, it is important to recognize that many young people have awakened to pro-people values and life-styles which can have a salutary influence on our society. Depth youth-adult encounters in small groups may help create a society that weds the viable from the past with new humanizing relationships and institutions.

Joseph Fletcher observes that although the "compassion quotient" of most adults in our bourgeois culture is low, they do care intensely about their children -- who in turn care intensely about poverty, racism, ecology, and war.¹⁰ He sees this as a potential lever to motivate adults to become involved in desperately needed social action. I would add that transgenerational confrontation/communication groups can help develop shared commitments to values and action which will improve our sick society. There are important values on each side of the generation gap -- values which need to be brought together to help persons achieve a full life in a free society.

Ecology Growth Groups

The need for groups with a dual focus on personal growth and social change is illustrated by the crisis in our environment. Reflect for a moment on a few familiar facts: The endangered wildlife list now stands at a record 101 species in the United States -- mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles facing extinction. Each year we spew 183 million tons of contaminants into our fragile envelope of air. Many of our rivers are open sewers. Each week the world has 1,396,000 new mouths to feed, a large proportion in the poorer nations. Almost half of the world's 3.6 billion human beings are undernourished or malnourished. By 1985, if noise pollution trends continue, people more than two feet apart on an average urban street corner will have to scream to be heard. One student of the current scene states: "We seem to be quite capable of polluting ourselves out of meaningful existence. All we have to do is to continue with our most thoughtless present practices.''¹¹ It's frighteningly obvious to thoughtful persons that the human race -- equipped with the bomb, the engine, and other fruits of technology; with arrogant disregard for nature and for other animals; and with a tragically immature social conscience -- is itself on the endangered species list.

The delicate balance among and between all living things and their environment (the ecosystem) has been upset by man, particularly affluent western man with his technology and resource-gobbling living standard. (An average American uses up natural resources at a rate fifty times greater than that of an average person in India.) If we care at all about the kind of world in which our children and grandchildren will live, our values, relations with nature, and destructive life-styles must be drastically reoriented. We can no longer ignore the fact that we are part of the delicate balance of living things. The quality of our lives will depend increasingly on respecting this profound fact.

Growth-action groups can help us simultaneously develop sensitive ecological consciences and carry out social action to save the environment on which all life depends. As Arnold Toynbee once said, "The necessary condition for making technology bear fruit that will be sweet and not bitter is a spiritual change of heart. ."¹² Such a change of heart is the goal of dynamic ecology education which must have high priority in schools, families, and churches. Three dimensions of growth are necessary in this process: comprehension of the crisis, conversion of our attitudes, and commitment of our consciences and behavior. The crisis is a struggle for survival; this can best be comprehended in study-action groups. Within these groups, attitudes toward nature can be transformed -- from arrogant, exploitative domination to respectful affinity with the natural world. Such change requires experiencing our organic bond with nature -- with the air, the ocean, and the earth; with all living things; and with the worldwide human family. In the words of the priest-scientist Teilhard de Chardin:

The world . . . to which we brought the boredom and callousness reserved for profane places, is in truth a holy place . . . Venite, adoremus.¹³

Commitment of our consciences means implementing life-respecting attitudes by earthy actions such as recycling wastes, reducing our greedy consumption of natural resources, and engaging in group efforts (e.g., economic boycotts and political action) to achieve practical ecological objectives.

Ecology awareness-action groups can help us, in Ralph Waldo Emerson's words, to "enjoy an original relation to the universe.''¹⁴ Perhaps you recall precious moments -- when you have been aware of such a relationship. I remember lying on the warm glacier-polished granite high on a mountain and feeling a strange connection between the rock and a primitive something in me. Or the moving moment of finding a fossil seashell near a peak in the Rockies more than 10,000 feet above the sea. Or the sunny day in spring when the growth forces all around in our garden seemed somehow to be flowing also through me. Discovering and renewing one's inner ties with nature are essential to maintaining enthusiasm for the ecological struggle. Lifelong love affairs with nature can be sparked by experiencing it with someone who is sensitive, informed, and alive to the wonders of the universe.

Sensitizing our individual consciences ecologically and practicing respect for the environment are essential starting places. But it is crucial to move beyond these to joint political action. In the long run only more enlightened laws and public policies can bring victory in the struggle. Local groups should ally themselves with the national ecology groups which are educationally and politically effective.

Every community has its pollution and ecology problems. A lay training-for-mission group in a Protestant church¹⁵ began by listening to their community and its needs. They decided that they "must work toward creating an ecological conscience in this church, community, and beyond." A sensitive physicist took them on a hike in the nearby mountains to experience "the livingness of nature which we seek to preserve." They read extensively and discussed the material. They related what they learned to their group's guiding beliefs -- by discovering biblical and theological foundations for good ecology. Their group-created strategy included these actions: establishing cooperative links with other churches and groups committed to ecology; developing a Center of Ecology Information and a paperback book table at the church; devising methods to reach decision-makers in the community; exploring the development of a coordinating council of all ecology groups active in that community -- Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Zero Population Growth, League of Conservation Voters, Wilderness Society, National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, World Population, GASP (Group Against Smog Pollution), Planned Parenthood, etc. This group used an integrated growth-action approach working at both ends of the ecological crisis -- personal growth through a broad educational thrust and social change through community action.

Ecology and the Good Life

The ecological perspective provides a wide-angle lens for viewing the human potentials situation on our planet. As biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich make clear,¹⁶ the diverse problems humanity faces -- overpopulation, war, widespread hunger, pollution, resource depletion -- all intertwine. Collectively they pose an unprecedented threat and challenge to all mankind. Unless the population explosion can be controlled, all measures to save the environment will be exercises in futility. Growth-action groups can make a small but significant contribution to defusing the "population bomb" at the personal level. Couples can discover ways to satisfy their needs for security, self-esteem and creativity other than by having many children. On a social action level, groups can work for objectives such as income tax incentives to reward small rather than large families and freely available family planning resources for everyone everywhere.

The ultimate pollutant is, of course, war. Until the monster weapons of the nuclear powers are controlled by world structures of peace and justice, mankind flirts daily with extinction. I recall a moving conversation with a Greek population biologist (whom I encountered on a recent plane trip). Commenting on the importance of the rising tide of respect for the environment, he observed: "But all our efforts in the ecology fight will be wasted unless we prevent the war that will pollute the whole earth in a day." I'm not claiming that a network of growth groups by itself will prevent a nuclear doomsday. But it can help by reducing the enormous reservoir of individual anger, frustration, and unlived life that fuels collective hostilities. Growth groups can help more and more of us increase our ability to live and to love. Loving people will support movements and leaders who are tuned to the people dynamic. Loving people, who are also politically skilled, can elect leaders who are genuine statesmen and peacemakers. Loving, open, growing people are best prepared to function as citizens of the world community with ultimate commitment to the human race.

Growth groups can also be used to build bridges of communication and empathy across the barriers that divide mankind -- the ethnic, racial, national, and political differences that isolate us from our fellow human beings, During several workshops on counseling in India, my wife and I led growth groups for participants. In spite of the vast differences in languages and cultures among group members and between them and us as leaders, remarkable things happened. We discovered that it was possible, in many cases, to transcend barriers of culture and touch each other's common humanity. That these groups (in what we had feared would be an unpromising setting) had an impact was clear in the responses of many participants. In the closing group evaluation period, one Indian priest said to a fellow priest, "We have been living, studying, and eating together in the same small seminary for nine years, yet I feel I've come to know you better in this group than in all that time."

The discovery that growth groups can be effective in another culture, even when led by "outsiders," strengthened our appreciation of the extraordinary power, usefulness, and adaptability of this method. It reinforced our belief that a significant contribution to world peace could be made by the widespread use of intercultural and international growth groups.

In the earlier chapters of this book, the thrust was on the development of the full potential of individuals in caring communities called growth groups. Individuals can develop their potentialities only as they experience a mutual fulfillment with other people. This can happen fully only as organizations and social structures support the life-style of personal growth. Thus, personal growth and social growth need each other. Furthermore, in finding one's cause and pouring oneself into it, a dimension of new growth becomes available. To paraphrase the words of a first-century carpenter: "A person who hoards his life will only exist, but one who invests himself gladly in efforts to create a better world will find the secret of life in its fullness."

For millions of us earthlings, the pictures of earth from thousands of miles in space give a fresh perspective on our human situation, Archibald MacLeish described it in these beautiful and now-familiar words:

Looking back toward the earth from near the moon, one spaceman declared wistfully, "It looks like a good place to live." In these words he expressed both a present truth and a challenge for the future. That's our task, humanizing our society -- economically, politically, interpersonally, religiously, environmentally -- so that it will be, in fact, a good place for everyone. Finding your unique role in helping to create a world society dedicated to human fulfillment can open a new chapter in your personal journey toward wholeness.

The "greening of America," of western society, of the world community, can only occur as we develop a generally available network of opportunities for experiencing the people dynamic -- the power of people to create and recreate themselves and each other in intimate relationships. The lethal destructiveness that erupts in a thousand forms of violence around the globe stems from the anger of loneliness, the guilt of massive unlived life, the despair of ever getting one's physical and emotional needs satisfied. Growth groups, in their many forms, offer a promising strategy for ending the tragic waste of our most important resource -- people. They are our best hope for using the people dynamic to create a more dynamic people throughout the earth.

Additional Reading -- Training Change Agents

Social Change:

Ecology:

References,

Virginia Satir¹

The framework and prototype of such a network of lifetime growth centers already exist -- in the schools, churches,( Read "church and temple" whenever the word church appears.) and social agencies of our communities. But the vision of a more humanizing community can become a reality only as these institutions function more fully as human growth and development centers! These institutions hold the key to releasing the people dynamic in a community; they are the most realistic basis on which to create group growth opportunities for people of all ages.

Enlivening our Institutions

Herbert Otto has pointed out that "The actualization of our human potentialities is closely bound to the regeneration of our human institutions.... We must begin with ourselves and the institutions with which we are most intimately concerned and connected."² Somehow we must continually revitalize the educational establishment, organized religion, and community agencies so that they respond to changing human needs -- becoming ( in John Gardner's words ) "self-renewing institutions."

Growth groups can help in this renewal process. When leaders of institutions make groups a major thrust in both staff development and program, significant things happen. The level of participation and enthusiasm tend to rise as real human needs are met. In churches, the much-abused term "church renewal" becomes an experienced reality as congregations commit themselves to corporate ministries of mutual growth. People experience love, reconciliation, and grace in small communities of caring. The same enlivening occurs in schools where small-groups stimulate whole-person growth. In my own teaching, the discovery that growth groups and inductive methods of teaching theory can be combined in ways that strengthen both, has made a refreshing difference. In social agencies, growth-oriented groups are a practical means of moving to a prevention and fulfillment orientation and away from the repair-therapy orientation. Enhancing positive mental health in small groups for normal people may prevent many personal and family problems from developing.

An institution is vital to the extent that it is meeting human needs. In making decisions about types of growth groups to develop in any organization, listing unmet needs is the place to start. Which ages or groups within its constituency have the most pressing unmet growth needs? Among these, which hold the most promise of renewing the internal life of the organization to make it a more enlivening social environment? In schools, this question usually points to teachers and administrators. In churches, it points to clergymen and their spouses, lay leaders, and church school teachers. In agency settings, it points to administrators, counselors, and other staff members. Providing growth opportunities for these strategic groups is the most direct way to increase an institution's growth-stimulating vitality.

In all organizations, potential small group leaders are another high-priority target. Discovering natural growth facilitators and offering them a depth group experience is an efficient way of developing creative leadership for groups ( growth and otherwise) within the organization. Several churches which now have a lively variety of growth groups did precisely this. They recruited the most emotionally mature persons available for the first group; those showing natural facilitator aptitudes were invited to obtain further training and then to co-lead groups with more experienced leaders. As more and more key people in any organization have growth experiences, the interpersonal climate and the program are gradually enlivened.

In his book Joy, Expanding Human Awareness, William Schutz declares:

Growth Groups in Schools

Schools can and should play a major role in providing growth opportunities for persons of all ages. Every community has its schools. If teachers, administrators, school boards, and parents catch a vision of schools as lifelong growth centers, the humanizing impact of this vast network of schools can be immense. In public and private schools, from prekindergarten through graduate and professional education, and continuing in a tremendously expanded adult learning program, growth groups can be used to release the people dynamic throughout society.

Good schools have always been growth centers. All genuine learning is growth. Skillful teachers are natural growth-facilitators. The growth group approach is a methodology for whole-person education by which teachers can increase their influence for growth. It is an approach which is effective in the most difficult and vital area of education -- that involving feelings, attitudes, values, and relationships. These matters must receive increased attention if education is to equip people of all ages for full, responsible, joyful living. Norman Cousins describes humanizing education: "The first aim of education should not be to prepare young people for careers but to enable them to develop respect for life. Related lessons should be concerned with the reality of human sensitivity and the need to make it ever finer and more responsive; the naturalness of loving and the circumstances that enhance it or enfeeble it."⁴ Growth groups offer a setting in which students and teachers can wrestle together with the value dilemmas and relationship problems which are central to the development of a workable life-style; they can promote the integration of relevant content from our culture in this process.

Teachers and administrators are keys to the growth climate of classrooms, faculty relationships, and administrative committees. Open, growing teachers tend to create growth-stimulating relationships with students. Administrators with firm and person-affirming styles tend to create growth-supporting schools. As suggested above, growth opportunities for these key persons are crucially important.

My wife and I have had a number of teachers in our growth groups. Often they were under heavy pressure in their jobs. They liked their work for the most part, but were "up to their ears" in discipline problems, staff tensions, criticisms from parents, and feelings of being sucked dry by the enormous needs of oversized classes. In some cases, the groups have helped them gain interpersonal satisfactions to offset job frustrations and have increased their communication and person-centered skills. A notable example was a fourth grade teacher who reported at the end of a group: "I've discovered here that it's O.K. to care and express it. What this has done to my teaching is amazing. The kids respond as if I were a different person!"

Peter Knoblock and Arnold Goldstein report on the use of group interaction to overcome professional loneliness and to further teacher growth. Six teachers met for seventeen sessions. Opportunity to talk out their ideas and feelings enhanced their ability to cope with daily classroom problems. They discovered a major untapped resource of experience and help -- each other. Research findings on the group showed that the teachers had developed new listening skills, improved teacher-to-teacher relationships, and increased their understanding of themselves, each other, and their students.⁵

An Esalen program for teachers employs encounter, body movement, and sensory awareness techniques. Participants have developed innovative ways to integrate students' feelings, values, and relationships with the regular school curriculum.⁶

It behooves school administrators to make professional growth groups available to teachers who desire them as part of their continuing training. (It is also important for school boards and the community in general to understand the purpose of whatever small groups are used in a school system.) Since some teachers prefer to attend growth groups completely unrelated to the schools, community agencies have an opportunity to provide such groups. "Teacher Effectiveness Training" is one approach which has been productive with both professional (public and private school) and volunteer (church school) teachers.

Carl Rogers describes a plan for using encounter groups to awaken an entire school system from top to bottom. Beginning with a growth workshop for key administrators and board members, encounter groups are subsequently provided for interested teachers, students, and parents. Finally, a vertical group composed of two trustees, administrators, teachers, parents, excellent students, and failing or dropout students is held on the theme: "Our schools: What I like and don't like about them, and what I want them to be."⁷ The emphasis is on developing a climate of openness and self-directed learning throughout the system.

Growth-group methods can be applied to classroom teaching to increase students' feelings of confidence and competence. William Glasser's open-ended classroom meetings, described in Schools Without Failure, are one illustration. In another educational innovation, the Human Development Program, children in groups of ten or so, for about twenty minutes each school day, participate in a variety of learning games. These allow them to experience success, deal with positive and negative feelings, discover something about relating, and learn that others have similar fears and concerns. Kindergarteners, for example, may receive and give fruit or candy to each other. Reactions to the exchanges are then explored by the children as they learn they have the ability to make others feel good. The goal of the program is to develop persons with healthy self-confidence as a foundation for maximum learning and for actualization of their potential.⁸

In addition to classroom growth methods, schools should develop a variety of other small groups for students, led by qualified teachers, counselors, and school psychologists. Two sources suggest the variety of growth group possibilities. Merle M. Ohlsen describes group counseling of adolescents and children in schools.⁹ Helen Driver reports on two groups for high school seniors, three groups for college students, and four leaderless teachers' groups.¹⁰ The second part of Driver's book reports on forty-four projects using small groups in elementary, high school, college, and graduate professional schools (as well as mental health settings ), as described by the leaders of each group.

Growth groups are being used increasingly with college students in ecumenical student religious centers, in psychology and human relations courses, in training of dorm counselors, and in college guidance programs. Three psychologists who use growth groups at the University of California at Davis state: ``This small group approach, bringing persons together in an atmosphere of community and trust, fairly explodes with antidotes for what ails higher education.... The basic mode of the encounter group is relevance, the actual, the real, and the here-and-now.... The encounter process stresses openness, transparency, and clear and effective communication.... It helps to reduce the barriers of roles and styles of living which keep apart and prevent understanding.''¹¹

Since the professional effectiveness of teachers, ministers, social workers, counseling psychologists, nurses, and psychiatrists depend so much on their skills in relating and communicating, graduate schools training them should make extensive use of growth groups. My experience with professional growth groups for theological students over the last decade has convinced me that the quality of professional services could be raised significantly in a few years if growth groups were used widely in professional education. It takes more interpersonal competence to be effective in any of the person-centered professions today than it did in a less chaotic time. Groups offer opportunities to integrate the knowledge of one's profession with essential interpersonal skills in the formation of one's professional identity.

Relationship training will undoubtedly be increasingly emphasized in adult education. Junior and senior colleges, university extension departments, churches, high schools, and community agencies should provide high-quality groups with an emphasis on learning to love, to create, to enjoy, to relate, to communicate. As leisure increases, both the need and the possibility for such in-depth learning groups will also increase. George Leonard puts the challenge well: "Education in a new and greatly broadened sense can become a lifelong pursuit for everyone. To go on learning, to go on sharing that learning with others may well be considered a purpose worthy of mankind's ever-expanding capacities''¹² Education, in this perspective, becomes not a timelimited preparation-for-living but an ongoing way of life. Small groups can help to nurture this lifelong growth. Their goal is to make learning "as relevant, involving, and joyful as the learning each of us experienced when we were infants first discovering ourselves and our surroundings."¹³

Growth Groups in Churches

Churches should play a strategic part in the growth network needed to develop the unused human potentialities in every community. No other institution in American life has regular, face-to-face contacts with so many millions of adults. The small group approach is a natural in the church, undergirded by a long tradition. The right of each person to develop his full potential as a child of God is basic in the Jewish-Christian heritage. Many church leaders -- clergy and laity -- are discovering the power of groups for implementing this right. Robert Leslie, a pioneer in using small groups in the church, now reports: "An increasing number of people are finding new meaning in their church life through small sharing groups. More and more ministers are finding a new focus for their ministry in developing group life.''^l4 Relevant churches have a three-pronged mission: to heal brokenness, to nurture growth, and to equip (train, coach, educate, inspire) change/growth agents to help individuals and to create a more humanizing society. Growth groups are useful in each of these thrusts.

I concur with George Webber's conviction that a congregation in mission "will make basic provision for its members to meet in small groups (as well as corporate worship), not as a sidelight or option for those who like it, but as a normative part of its life.''^l5 A viable motif for the church in the last third of the century is found in words attributed to Jesus in John's Gospel: "I have come that men may have life . . . in all its fullness" ( John 10:l0, NEB). To implement this motif in mission, a church must become a human wholeness and training center.

Churches have several unique advantages and resources which can be utilized in growth groups. Since all eight life stages are represented in a congregation, there's a splendid opportunity to develop a full ladder of growth groups. Small groups can help people prepare for normal, developmental crises (e.g., adolescence) and cope with unexpected, accidental crises. The vertical orientation of the church fellowship defines another unique resource -- an explicit concern for nurturing spiritual growth by helping people develop functional adult values and philosophies of life and thereby strengthen their connection with the Source of life and growth. Spiritual growth involves deepening one's sense of "at-homeness" in the universe and increasing one's awareness that"I'm O.K. -- You're O.K. -- God's O.K." God is very dead for many people. The concept refers to no reality in their actual experience. God can be revived for them only in relationships where theological truths become experiential realities. This can happen in growth groups. At the close of two weeks of daily growth group sessions, participants in one workshop could identify these biblical themes in their shared experiences: bondage and liberation, salvation by grace, judgment, death and rebirth, alienation and reconciliation, mutual caring, the transforming power of love, becoming a spiritual unity, growth.

Church groups can contribute to spiritual growth by utilizing basic insights from their heritage. This heritage holds that man is more than "a larger white rat or a slower computer''¹⁶ -- his freedom, awareness, valuing, caring, and creativeness constitute the core of his humanness. These spiritual aspects (called the "image of God" in traditional language) are what make man human. Growth in these increases his humanity. From the religious perspective, human potentializing is not so simple as an acorn becoming an oak. Man takes part in creating or distorting his own future; he is to a degree self-determining.

The human potentials movement needs the emphasis of the Hebrew-Christian tradition (and of Freud) on man's powerful tendencies to resist, block, and distort the growth drive. Simplistic growth models such as unfolding flowers are deceptively attractive but inadequate when applied to the complexities of human life The recognition that "dying" precedes rebirth is a valuable part of ancient Christian wisdom (expressed symbolically by crucifixion preceding resurrection). In groups this truth becomes experiential as the painful dying of life-constricting defenses and patterns of relating precedes rebirth to more intimate, vital relationships. From their heritage, church groups should be aware that ultimately all growth is a gift and a mystery. Grace, the love we do not have to earn, is the power that produces growth. Forgetting this, infatuation with our techniques can make them sterile and manipulative. A sense of the ultimate mystery of all life and all relationships should remind church groups that there are no psychological answers to the deepest dimensions of any human problems. For the normal anxiety and existential loneliness which are inescapable parts of man's self-awareness, only spiritual and philosophical answers satisfy.¹⁷ To help persons find these is that part of a growth group's task to which a church group brings unique resources.

In developing church growth groups, it helps keep their unique perspectives and resources accessible if their purpose is described theologically as well as psychologically. A church's group plan should have two parallel thrusts -- (1) developing groups with explicit goals of personal/marital/family growth, and (2) infusing regular, ongoing church groups with a stronger growth emphasis. In larger churches, the eventual aim of the first thrust should be to make a variety of growth experiences available to all interested persons at each stage and interest category. In smaller churches, a leaders group, one for couples, one for youth, and one mixed group are usually feasible.

Priority should be given to establishing certain types of groups: As indicated earlier, one of these is a group for church officials, other lay leaders, teachers, and youth leaders. Reaching these persons is the most efficient way to infuse ongoing groups with a growth emphasis. Marriage enrichment groups, particularly for new and expecting parents, should have priority. As the only institutions with direct entree to millions of new families, churches have a strategic responsibility to provide growth experiences for those who have or will soon have awesome influence over the mental health of small children.

Since spiritual growth is an explicit concern, special spiritual enrichment groups should be developed in churches. (Spiritual development should be emphasized in all groups as part of wholeperson growth. ) Depth Bible study groups, Yokefellow, and Koinonia¹⁸ groups are approaches which combine deepening one's faith and relationships. Crisis support groups should be available as part of a church's growth opportunities. When crises are handled well, they produce growth. A middle-aged widow told how an informal support group (of former church school teachers) rallied round when they received word that her teen-age daughter had run away. "I believe I would have come unglued without that group!" she stated. Bereavement recovery groups, as suggested earlier, should be available in every church. As the only professionals regularly involved with the family after death occurs, clergymen have the major responsibility for facilitating recovery from grief. By helping persons complete their "grief work," small groups can liberate potentialities for fuller living. In many churches, those in crises, including bereavement, may become a part of mixed growth groups.

Action-Growth groups can express both the pastoral and the prophetic ministry, and should have priority in a church's group program.

Caring teams of laymen can best be trained in growth-action groups. Warm, confident, and accepting people are chosen and trained to work as volunteers, under the minister's direction, calling on shut-ins, the sick, newcomers, and the bereaved. After trying several approaches, I now believe there are three ingredients in effective training: (1) Brief input sessions presenting, with abundant illustrations, simple, operational tools such as reality therapy and crisis-helping methods. (2) Skill practice and supervision -- for example, role-playing a call on a bereaved person. (3) Personal growth experiences in a small group where the integration of ideas and skills can occur. The group's trainer-facilitator should keep a balance between personal growth and training for helping others. This kind of relationship training should be available to all church groups which do lay calling for budget raising, membership recruitment, parish shepherding, etc., to increase their interpersonal skills.

In addition to these high-priority groups, churches should develop other growth opportunities, guided by the need-pattern of particular congregations and communities.

The pastor of a Massachusetts congregation decided to do something about the superficial relationships which make many churches "communities of strangers." Attempts to recruit separate growth groups were unsuccessful because of crowded schedules. The alternative was to introduce a growth emphasis into regular boards, committees, and meetings. By streamlining business, time became available for deeper sharing. In approaching each group, the minister explained his intent and asked permission to introduce certain experiences of relating. Several women's groups turned from primary concern with the institutional church to community projects, as a result of the "new flavor" developed in the groups through interpersonal deepening.²⁰ It has been my experience that many larger church meetings, including worship services, can be enlivened by incorporating small group communication and awareness experiences into the proceedings.

Growth groups can be effective in small churches and in small communities. The minister of such a church, who has developed two groups, reports that small-town anxiety about secret-breaking sometimes deters deep sharing. But assets outweigh liabilities. The groups have bridged differences between several people, opened individual counseling opportunities, let parishioners express "beefs" directly, and given the minister support in his ministry.²¹ I concur with Robert Leslie's suggestion that the most natural, unthreatening way to introduce personal sharing in churches is to combine this emphasis with study. This is essential in many rural and conservative areas where resistance to newer group approaches exists.

Larger churches can develop a variety of growth groups. An Oregon church uses its groups to serve both its members and its community. One of the ministers describes the church groups:

The church also has student-adult communication groups, Yokefellow groups, and Functional Department Groups (combining growth and task objectives).

This church reaches out to the needs of its community by sponsoring and staffing two sessions of Parent Effectiveness Training and one of Teacher Effectiveness Training each year. Recently the church has begun weekend Marriage Effectiveness Training groups. Approximately 90 percent of participants in these three programs are not members of the sponsoring church.( A number of churches in various parts of the country have sponsored or cooperated in growth centers which serve their communities by offering growth workshops, institutes, and retreats).

The impact on a church of its growth groups is evident in this report from a minister in California:

Clergymen have exciting, demanding jobs as growth facilitators in churches seen as human-development centers. Their commitment is to liberate, enlarge, deepen, and enrich the pro-life forces in families, individuals, and social institutions -- and to equip laymen for their enlivening work in the congregation and community. To be effective as an enlivener of others, a clergyman should have his own growth group for continuing professional renewal. The minister and his wife should be in an ongoing marriage growth-support group in order to nurture their own relationship. The strange new world we live in opens unprecedented opportunities for ministries to persons. But it also demands more resourcefulness, more spiritual guts, more love with muscles. To meet this challenge -- to minister to the new age -- a clergyman must acquire new tools; more important, he must be open to becoming a new person -- more aware, caring, and alive. That is why he needs a growth group on a continuing basis,

Growth Groups in Community Agencies

If growth groups are to become maximally available and effective, community agencies must play a major role. Many persons who are not likely to join groups in churches and schools may do so if they're made available in family counseling agencies' mental health services, youth organizations, business and industry, fraternal groups, self-help groups (such as A.A., P.W.P., Alanon, etc.), and in the many organizations devoted to special needs of the handicapped, ex-prisoners, ex-patients, unwed parents, minority groups of all kinds, senior citizens, community action groups, ethnic organizations. Furthermore, the effectiveness of many agencies and organizations can be increased significantly by utilizing growth groups to achieve their particular goals-for-people.

Growth groups have a role in both the preventive and treatment aspects of community mental health services. Growth groups should have a central place in the after-care programs which follow intensive treatment. Community networks of groups for families of patients and ex-patients would improve the interpersonal environment which supports or sabotages full recovery of the patient. In a survey of the ways groups are used in mental health centers, psychiatrist E. Mansell Pattison found that one of the most frequent uses is in consultation services for those in the care-giving professions.²⁴ In the Los Angeles area, for several years, small groups of clergymen met with consultants supplied by the community mental health centers to discuss counseling relationships in their parishes. These groups had a double value -- they were an efficient use of the consultants' time, and, as mutual learning and support occurred, they became professional growth groups for the ministers.

Mental health education is most successful in growth groups where the principles of mental hygiene can be applied in personal ways, ways which take into account the feelings, attitudes, self-image, and relationships of those involved. Groups also have a major role in training mental health personnel -- professionals, paraprofessionals, and nonprofessional volunteers. Pattison's survey revealed that a surprising 41 percent of the centers provided some type of personal growth group for their professional trainees. The training of the nonprofessionals who staff the effective Marriage Guidance Centers in Australia and elsewhere is done mainly in groups.

Mental health centers should also offer growth-oriented groups to clients. A surgeon on a medical school faculty came to a private mental health clinic with this question: "At forty-two, I'm a high-level technician. Where can I go to learn how to live?" An innovative psychologist responded to this challenge by setting up a growth group called a "School for Living," aimed at actualization of potentialities and increasing effectiveness in living.²⁵ This approach is now being used in a state rehabilitation of the handicapped program.

Many family, marriage, and child counseling agencies make use of growth groups, particularly in family life education programs. The Pastoral Institute of Calgary has an extensive program of small group education for family living. The director of this program describes why they prefer to use the growth group approach: "It is in the dynamics of a small group that we experience the interactions, feeling responses, and behavior patterns of our own family's relationships -- and others. A small group provides a catalytic learning situation with . . . emotional involvement and safety, under the guidance of a leader-facilitator, in which intellectual, feeling and behavior learning can best take place."²⁶

Many of the 340 Family Service Association of America agencies use growth groups in their family life education. A counselor in one such program comments on the values of this approach: "Individual concerns and frustrations are handled, feelings are recognized and shared. The participants try new methods, then bring up the same topic in other meetings. Some topics such as sex education, handling of anger . . . may be main topics for three or four sessions."²⁷

The "Y" is using growth groups for both staff training and service to youth and families. The National Board of YMCA's sponsors a Family Communication Skills Center to help "Y's" develop programs for families. Local "Y's" use Parent and Teacher Effectiveness Training and family crisis prevention groups in workshops for training staff and lay group leaders.

Business and industry have made extensive use of growth groups to improve human relations within their organizations. "Organizational Development" ( O.D. ) is an approach which attempts to "integrate individual needs for growth and development with organizational goals and objectives in order to make a more effective organization."²⁸ It has been used by school systems, religious organizations, governmental agencies, as well as business and industry. The goal of O.D. can be described by Abraham Maslow's term "synergy" -- the state which exists when an organization is so arranged that an individual in meeting his own needs also meets the needs of others and the organization.²⁹ O.D. is an illustration of how growth group principles can, by taking human relationships and needs seriously, be used to accomplish tasks more effectively.

Groups Through the Life Cycle

To maximize the fulfillment of human potentials, the organizations of a community -- schools, churches, agencies, and others -- should develop small groups designed to meet the growth needs of persons at each of the eight life stages. An overview of these stages and some groups which are relevant to each may suggest new possibilities for groups which can be developed in your organization. The following chart lists the stages as delineated by Erik Erikson;³⁰ some groups which can help accomplish the growth goal of each stage (column 2); and some groups to meet the needs of "significant others" at each stage ( column 3):

Stage and Life Growth Groups for Growth Groups for

Task Persons in this Stage Significant Others

Stage 1: IN- Expectant parents growth

FANCY groups.

Life task:

Key question:

Stage 2:Nursery groups. Parents support, sharing,

EARLY Toddlers creative play and fellowship groups

CHILD:) groups., to meet the needs of

HOOD this stage -- their own

( 15 months to and their child's. ( Each

2 1/2 years ) stage 1-5. )

Parents growth group

Life task: Developing a Play group for child.

sense of Ongoing training group

AUTONOMY for nursery school

while retain- workers (church &

ing basic nonchurch).

trust. Group for parents of

handicapped children -- (all stages).

Key question:

Stage 3: PLAY Pre-school nursery groups. Parents growth groups to

AGE "Play therapy" adapted meet the needs of this

(3 to 6 to stimulate growth of stage -- theirs and their

years ) nondisturbed. child's.



"Head start" group for Family growth nights, weekends, camps.

children from culturally

impoverished backgrounds

Life task: .

Developing a Child and family crea-

sense of INI- tivity groups -- dance,

TIATIVE. art, music, drama,

myth-creating, etc.

Key question: Single-parent groups (at

Can I prize each of first 5 stages).

and exercise

my growing

sense of

strength and

thrust?

Stage 4: Clubs and activity groups Parents growth groups,

SCHOOL for boys or for girls. to help them begin to

AGE ( 6 to 12 Junior and junior high release the child.

years ) camps, and conferences.- Leader and teacher

growth groups for

Discovery groups --

Adults leading groups

Life task:

Developing a emphasis on creative at this stage.

sense of IN- activities, play that Parent-child groups:

DUSTRY, develops skills and father/son; mother/

and of one's competencies. daughter.

role as a boy Confirmation-growth Family nights: fun, study,

or girl. classes. worship, sharing.

Play therapy groups for Family checkups.

the non-disturbed. Family camps.

Key question:

Can I acquire Relationship, sex, and Child-family crea-

competency drug education groups. tivity groups.

in the basic Tutoring groups, using

skills of my older students.

culture?

Stage 5: Teen discovery groups: Parent study and growth

ADOLES- Boy/Girl relations, groups. (See Middle

CENCE getting along with years. )

(Puberty to parents, decisions about Parent support groups to

20 ) drugs, alcohol, sex, cope with stresses of

vocational choices. adolescents in home.

Life task: Identity search groups. Parents group to work on

Developing a Work/worship/play their own unfinished

strong sense groups. identity and conflicts

of IDEN- Premarital growth groups stirred up by teens.

TITY. Depth study groups. Joint parents-youth

Retreats, camps groups -- series, camps,

hikes, task groups, retreats;

generation gap bridging groups.

Key questions:

Preparation for marriage groups.

Preparation for parenthood, college, leaving home, etc.

"Search for meaning" groups.

Ecology growth groups.

Stage 6: Single young adult ( See groups for children

YOUNG growth group: `'Deep- in stages 1 4.)

ADULT- ening Relationships."

HOOD Preparation for marriage

group.

Life task: Newlyweds growth

Developing group: Building your

INTIMACY marriage.

(Groups for young parents

Key questions: -- see Stages 1, 2 and

Can I estab- 3).

Iish close and Family network groups:

meaningful several young families.

relation- Marriage Liberation

ships? groups.

"Alternatives to Mar-

riage" groups.

Stage 7: Mid-Years Marriage En- (See groups for adoles-

MIDDLE richment group. cents and young

ADULT- Generativity groups: adults, stages 5 and 6.)

HOOD evaluating oneself in-

vestment plan

Life task: (philosophy of life).

Spiritual search groups.

Key question: Discover-Your-Hidden-

Can I find my Talent group.

fulfillment Your Second Vocation

through giv- group.

ing to the Preparation for Construc-

ongoing tive Retirement group.

stream of life? Groups for parents of

teens ( see Stage I; )

and emptying nest.

 Stage 8: Creative activity groups: Groups for young and

OLDER depth study groups; mid-adults whose

ADULT- art groups; contem- parents are now lean-

HOOD porary issues groups; ing on them.

prayer and share

groups.

Life task:

Developing Service groups aimed at

"EGO IN- the needs of older

TEGRITY," adults and others in

by accepting the community; dual

and affirming focus on service and

one's life. personal growth; group

to use the many rich

talents of retired

persons.

Key question:

Can I make

peace with Spiritual growth groups.

my finitude, Bereavement group for

accept my working through losses

brief place in of various kinds.

Life with Grandparent and

gratitude and foster-grandparent

serenity? Can groups.

I experience Constructive retirement

and prize groups.

those things Social action group.

which tran- Transgenerational group.

scend my

finitude?

Growth groups provide opportunities to discover ways of satisfying one's personality needs in the changing relationships, demands, frustrations, and possibilities of each new stage. As a strategy for helping persons cope constructively with the normal crises of human development, they are without equal. The most effective way to make your organization a human development center is to create growth groups to meet the needs of your members at their varying life stages.

Additional Reading

For Teachers and School Group Leaders:

For Church Leaders:

For Agency Group Leaders

References

1. Virginia Satir, "Marriage as a Human-Actualizing Contract," The Family in Search of a Future, New York: Appleton, 191O, p. 59.

2. Herbert Otto, "The New Marriage," The Family in Search of a Future, New York: Appleton, 1970, p. 112.

3. New York: Grove Press, 1967, p. 223.

4. Norman Cousins, "See Everything, Do Everything, Feel Nothing," Saturday Review, January 23, 1971, p. 31.

5. Peter Knobloch and Arnold Goldstein. The Lonely Teacher. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1971.

6. George B. Leonard, Education and Ecstasy, p. 220.

7. Carl R. Rogers, Freedom to Learn, pp. 803-323.

8. "Magic Circles in the Classroom ( abstracted from an article by Harold Bessell), in Sensitivity Training and the Laboratory Approach, Golembiewski and Blumberg (Eds.), pp. 349-3S2.

9. Merle M. Ohlsen, Group Counseling, pp. 193-239.

10. Helen I. Driver, Counseling and Learning through Small-Group Discussion, p. 167 ff.

11. S. B. Morris, J. Pflugrath, and B. Taylor, "Encounter in Higher Education," in Burton, Encounter, pp. 192-93.

12. George B. Leonard, Education and Ecstasy, p. 16.

13. This is Terry Borton's description of the way schools can become by stressing the process of coping with a student's real concerns. Reach Touch, and Teach, p. vii.

14. Robert C. Leslie, Sharing Groups in the Church, p. 7.

15. George Webber, The Congregation in Mission. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1964, pp. 116-17.

16. James Bugental (Ed.), The Challenges of Humanistic Psychology New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967, p. vii.

17. For a discussion of the relation of existential anxiety to religion, see Clinebell, Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling, Chap. 14.

18. Robert A. Raines, New Life in the Church, New York: Harper & Row, 1961.

19. Haciendia Heights, Calif., United Church of Christ; Ralph Earle was the pastor.

20. David H. Plate, "Encouraging Growth Groups," The Christian Advocate, August 22, 1968.

21. Letter from Vernon L. Story, June 7, 1970.

22. Letter from Arthur C. Morgan, April 2O, 1970, Kenneth Jones was the minister in charge of group development.

23. Letter from Reilly N. Hook, May 2S, 1971.

24. "Group Psychotherapy and Group Methods in Community Mental Health Programs," a report presented at the 25th and 26th annual meetings of the American Group Psychotherapy Assn., 1969-70.

25. The psychologist is Lawrence D. Mathae.

26. Letter from Oakley Dyer, June 7, 1971.

27. Letter from Joan Macy, FSA, Riverside, Calif., May 19, 1971.

28. Golembiewski and Blumberg (Eds.), Sensitivity Training and the Laboratory Approach, p. 342.

29. Abraham Maslow, Eupsychian Management, pp. 17-33, 88-107.

30. See Erikson, "Identity and the Life Cycle," Psychological Issues, Vol. 1, No. 1 1959, for a fuller discussion of the stages. The chart is adapted from two charts developed by task forces in my seminar, "Group Counseling in the Church." I am indebted to these groups.