Throughout this course, I have participated in a variety of group experiences, both as a member and facilitator. Each group experience has helped to increase my understanding of group principles including group dynamics, stages, issues, and therapeutic factors. Through being a group member, I have experienced the group process from a client’s perspective and become more multiculturally competent. In my role as a group leader, I have gained skills such as working collaboratively with a co-leader, using various group facilitation techniques, and developing a group for a population with which I hope to work. One of the most valuable aspects of this course was the Saturday group experience facilitated by Sarah Johnson. One reason that this …show more content…
Through facilitating the two in-class sessions about self-care and the PLC divorce group, I have learned some of the benefits and challenges of working with a co-leader. Corey, Corey, and Corey (2014) outline several advantages of co-leadership including “group members can gain from the perspectives of two leaders, co-leaders can confer before and after a group and learn from each other, and supervisors can work closely with co-leaders during their training and can provide them with feedback” (p. 44). I found that facilitating group sessions with my co-leader, Amanda, allowed us to learn from one another. For example, in creating both our self-care and divorce groups together, Amanda and I were able to collaborate and improve upon one another’s ideas in a way that would have not been possible if we were working individually. During the sessions, we were able to use various group facilitation techniques in a way that helped to improve group cohesion and help the group progress to the working stage. For example, if Amanda used reflections after group members shared, I could later build on these reflections by linking group members. Furthermore, Amanda and I were able to process after each session and discuss ways to improve future sessions. For example, after our first session about self-care, Amanda and I discussed how it …show more content…
In both the self-care and divorce groups, I was able to practice skills such as empathizing, interpreting, reflecting, questioning, supporting, and linking. For example, before facilitating groups in this class, I was afraid to focus too much on a single person in the group for an extended period of time, as I thought that it would make others in the group grow bored or feel as though I was not attending to their needs. However, through facilitating groups I learned that it is often beneficial to “go deeper” with a group member, as this can actually strengthen group cohesion and help the group address important issues, especially during the working stage. Another example of a facilitation skill that I improved was my ability to link group members to one another in order to use the therapeutic factor of universality and help group members to identify key themes. In our self-care group, we helped members to identify the common theme of guilt related to self-care, which led to a deeper exploration of personal and cultural values. In our divorce group, we helped “students” to explore how they often experienced conflicting feelings about their parents’ divorce, and that this is both normal and acceptable. Again, helping students to realize the universality of their experiences was central to the group