In T group we sit around in a circle and talk about what is present here and now, practising self-disclosure and learning from those around us. That’s it – simple and easy – right? For most of us being present is apparently a real challenge. Much of today’s world is focussed on distraction. Simply sitting and being present to our own feelings and the present moment, and others can feel like an arduous task and something we want to escape from. So at the most basic level we are practicing the skill of just being here and now.
The second bit of practice involves noticing what feelings are present for us. What sensations do we have and what are the stories behind those sensations or feelings – and then disclosing them to others. This often feels like a huge risk because we are so used to behaving in socially accepted ways, and wearing a mask of perfection or at least a mask of sufficiency that revealing our true self feels risky. In addition, we live in a world that values intellectualisation – that is being cognitively sharp is a skillset honed and valued in education and most modern work settings. That is we make ‘thinking’ a prized capacity, and this focus on the rational often comes at the expense of awareness or sensing of the emotional. It is rare that we sit and try to acknowledge what we feel, and even rarer still that we take the time to try and share it in a social setting.
People often nervously joke at the start of a T-group session ‘welcome to the Alcoholics Anonymous Group’, because it resembles what we associate with these groups. Partly it is to break the ice or tension they might be feeling, and partly because we associate sitting in a ring and talking as being synonymous with AA meetings, despite most of us never having attended one.
Ultimately though T group is what ever the group wants to make it. While there is often a facilitator, the facilitator has little power to control the group, any power they do have is anointed by the group and can be rescinded by the group.
Personally, I often think of T group as being present to the full human experience, and when people ask me what we get out of it I often reply that we practice just being human – which might sound cryptic, but in a single sentence this is the best description I have so far.
Nuts and bolts
Here is the practical details of how it works, or what it might look like from the outside. Normally T -group is between 6-12 people – you can push these numbers on either side, but I have found around 7 to be a sweet spot.
You sit in a circle being so that everyone can see each other. Then people share what is present for them.
Ideally everyone will share, although sharing (or not sharing) is entirely voluntary.
If you wish to share, you will ideally share what is present for you now. Try to avoid bringing in topics from outside the group or the session. If your mind is fixed on a topic from outside of now, then you might wish to share that you are struggling to be present here and now. You can also comment on how you feel about the current topic in the group. It might be sharing how you feel when the previous share was presented.
Ideally, we will avoid turn taking, that is going round in a circle taking turns for each person to share. While this might seem like an equitable way to share space, it avoids the reality of having to practice giving and taking space in a group.
Nothing to share? Not sure what to share?
A key purpose of the group is to talk about what is present here and now for each individual. If you are feeling something, then it is up to you to share that. If you are feeling nothing, then that’s what is here and now for you – share that. You cannot not feel something. Stated differently – you are always feeling something – you just might not be present to what you are feeling. Yet even that requires a sense of awareness that you are not present to what you are currently feeling. So, if you are sitting there wondering what you should share, then that can be a valid share – “I am sitting here feeling uncertain, because I am not sure I have anything to share, and I feel some kind of pressure to share in order to live up to the expectations of the group”. If you are bored by the current topic then that’s what is here and now for you – share that.
Format
The way we share in T group has a specific format, in the beginning I would recommend trying to stick to the format, as time progresses a little bit you might relax how much you use the format if at times you need to deviate. Yet sticking to the format in the long run is still really helpful.
The format looks like:
1) When you / or when x, y or z occurred. /or right now
In this step you’re very very briefly just trying to say what it was that triggered the feeling you are about to share. If referring to someone else or an event try to refer just to the objectively true elements, do your best to remove evaluation or judgment from the description.
2) I felt ….
This has to be a feeling. Often we use words as though they are feeling, when in fact they are evaluations. Examples might include ‘feeling judged’ – judgement is not a feeling. Or ‘I felt unheard..’ – again not a feeling, but an evaluation of how somehow else was listening. Alternatively, you might want to name what the feeling in your body is if you can’t quite find the label for the emotion. A feelings wheel can be a useful guide in the beginning.
3) The story I told myself / or what I made it mean
This is where you can elaborate on the evaluation or what you made it mean. Just remember that this is your evaluation or perspective, and others might easily come up with an alternative story. So try your best to present it as your personal story or personal truth, not as some kind of objective truth that is true for everyone.
4) My intention for sharing this is…./ In the future I would prefer…..
This is likely one of the hardest parts, to truthfully state why you are sharing what you are sharing. Often times people are not certain why they are sharing what they are sharing, and if you can’t come in contact with your reason for sharing then it might just be sufficient to say that you are practising sharing what is present for you. Alternatively you can state a request for the future, if you would prefer someone to behave differently. If doing this remember a ‘request’ is different from a demand, there should be not threats or punishments attached to a request so that the person on the other side
should be entirely free to ignore your request. Lastly, remember to make your request as concise and concrete as possible.
Here is a couple of examples “ (1) As Jane was sharing just now (2) I felt resentful and slightly angry (3) The story I have is that Jane is using time to discuss drama from outside the group and that it is eating into the group time (4) My intention for sharing this is to out myself to the group that I am judging Jane. I also would prefer to shift topics to something inside the group here and now.
“(1) When Jim shared that he was judging Jane (2) I felt tense (3) the story I have is that Jane and maybe others might feel less comfortable sharing in the future, and maybe even I feel a little less secure sharing now. At the same time (2) I also felt content (3) because I also was judging Jane and I was happy that it wasn’t just me (4) my intention for sharing this is to let Jim know how his sharing impacted me.
These aren’t perfect shares, but they help give a quick idea of how the format can work. They are also two examples of how using self disclosure can help reveal what is really taking place inside of you and let others become more aware of the nuances of social interactions.
As smart people we are often use to knowing what we think, and sharing what you think is something that likely comes easily. In T group we want to practice the skill of sharing what we feel, and our truth behind it. It can feel like a struggle for multiple reasons, often we haven’t practised this skill meaning even noticing what you are feeling might be foreign for you. In addition, even if you notice something you’re feeling, then putting a label on it will often be a challenge too.
I have noticed that those of us who aren’t that use to sharing their feelings or expressing their feelings can find the experience a little overwhelming in the beginning. Even if we are sharing something simple it can end up feeling like something inside you is about to crack. This is the experience of giving voice to something you have kept hidden or packed away for a long time, and simply bringing it into the light and bearing witness to your feeling can be a powerful experience in itself. To many this can end up feeling like a liberating experience and can lead to feeling lighter and freer.
Ignoring impulses
One of the things that T group is useful for is noticing your own impulses in how you wish to respond or act. Given the T is for training, it can be useful to train the skill of not giving into the impulse if the impulse is your normal way of behaving. For example, if you notice an impulse to be a recluse and not actively participate in the conversation, then consider taking the risk of speaking up and engaging. If you notice the impulse to talk and share, then maybe practice not giving into this impulse. Other typical impulses might be to care for others and make sure they feel ok, it might be to not care because you don’t think it’s your problem. It might be the impulse to try and fix others or to come up with solutions – try to let those impulses pass. If your impulse is to avoid conflict by not standing up for yourself, then try setting boundaries or sticking up for yourself. You get the point, try out a way of being that might feel like a risk to you.
To respond or not respond
The group is strong when each individual bond in the group is strong. Therefore, once the group has established itself and you have had a few initial meetings, it might be good to ask yourself, who is it that I feel mostly weakly connected to? How might I strengthen my bond with that individual? Then having noticed that, attempt to create an improved connection with that individual.
One of the ways to improve group strength as well is to begin to shift your focus outwardly to others, how are they doing? How are you interpreting them? It may seem like a contradiction, given that T group has previously focussed on sharing your perspective and what has been going on inside you. Yet, being too much orientated on yourself means you will be missing cues that others are sending about how they are. Interpreting these cues can give you a way to introduce them into a conversation, or to correlate whether you are reading their cues correctly.
One of the ways in which I personally feel safest in the group is when I know that each individual in the group is doing ‘ok’, or maybe ‘not ok’, but at least I know where they are. This is a fine line, where the intention is not to take responsibility for their feelings, but to be aware or present to what they are trying to signal and share.
The games we play
There are multiple ways a T group can be sabotaged. The times I have seen it occur I doubt that it was the conscious intention of the group to sabotage the process, but nevertheless it occurred. One way is in what I label ‘lets go shallow’ in which the group engages in a shared responsibility to avoid going deep. Where people share filler or fluff, things which they know aren’t deep or meaningful for them. The group then has multiple options in these moments, one is to either call the person out for sharing fluff, ignore their contribution, to engage with the ‘fluff’ or share some of their own ‘fluff’. A solid group engaged in doing the work will either call out or ignore offers of fluff from group members. While a group that wants to avoid going deep will engage with the fluff or provide more. In those groups avoiding the work it seems like there is a collective agreement of ‘not today’ we don’t want to go ‘there’. In this sense the group decides that they want to avoid their own interpersonal work.
This avoidance can easily occur when there is a naturally strong leader in the group who is used to steering social dynamics. It can be a way for this person to maintain their status or avoid what feels like a risk of unpacking their own issues. It is not just a single person who engages in this sabotage though, and is often supported by their friends or allies. In this sense a kind of enmeshment can occur, where the friends are playing the role of supporting the leader in avoiding topics, but also in the process limiting their own grown and freedom.
One slight variant of the ‘let’s go shallow’ game is keeping the topic outside of the here and now. An example might be someone who starts a share by saying they struggled to arrive on time today because they overslept. A group avoiding work will seize this opportunity to have a round of shares about who likes early mornings and who struggles with getting up early. This can easily be a way to avoid the here and now by discussing ‘safe’ topics from outside the group.
Another variant is what I call ‘philosophising’ where groups pick up on a hypothetical or perhaps political theme on which to hypothesise about what is the right answer. This might even allow some tensions to surface through disagreement about who is right, but rarely does it deal with group issues directly.
Social calibration and double loop learning
Part of the philosophical underpinning of T group in my mind is an acceptance of who you are as you are today. If this is true, then it is an acknowledgement that you are fine as you are. This gift of acceptance also therefore needs to be true for others as well. This creates a mini dilemma or conundrum with regards to social learning. That is, if we are both ok as we are, then there is no need to change. This is true on the one hand, we rarely NEED to change. Yet we might WANT to change
because we are finding ourselves to be less effective than is desirable in social situations. This is an important differentiation between a NEED to change and a desire to change. A need is one that somehow says we ought to change according to others, or that there might be some underlying threat if we don’t change, or that the change is beyond our control. A kind of being dominated in order to be changed. This is not likely to cause motivation for ourselves. In addition, pushing that paradigm on others is unlikely to cause motivation either.
The middle path of wanting to change is an internal motivation, where we feel a desire to try and be different. T group can be an effective way to have people meet in the middle and attempt to bring about change. It is not that you MUST change, and not that I MUST change, but rather, collectively we can meet in the middle, and through shared exchange learn a way to communicate that is effective for both of us. I call this a kind of social calibration. Calibration to me is the idea of tuning an instrument to get the right frequency, applied to social interactions it is about tuning your own instrument of communication to make it as effective as you desire. At the same time the receiver of the communication is also trying to tune their social skills meaning they are actively trying to learn how to interpret and receive the communication they are receiving from others. Like instruments, tuning is an ongoing process that requires continual maintenance.
The way this occurs is through double loop learning. Which is that a person, say ‘Tom’ communicates a delicate topic to ‘Beth’ – this is the first loop. The second loop is that ‘Beth’ can communicate to ‘Tom’ about how she felt when she received the communication. That way Tom can decide whether the feeling Beth had was the intended consequence or whether there is room for further calibrating his communication and/or worldview. That way in future attempts at communicating he will likely be better aware of how his message will be received, and therefore can adjust his communication style to ensure the greatest chances of having the intended impact.
The format of T group breaks with social norms, in that it provides the space to try and share what others think, feel and perceive in social situations. Hopefully this is occurring in an atmosphere of curiosity and learning which would maximise the chance of being able to engage in the process of experimenting and learning. Part of this requires us to keep calm enough to prevent our defence mechanisms from kicking in.
Freedom for you and for all
As a training opportunity I would encourage you to practise being different from how you normally are and taking interpersonal risks by acting on the opposite of your natural impulses. As this is a training arena and there is no right way to be, then this means there is a lot of freedom to be exactly as you would like (although I would like to suggest minor caveats). This freedom also extends to everyone in the group – they are free to be as they would like.
This means you are free to have any emotional experience you like – yet the group is free to exclude you if they find you to be operating outside of what they deem ‘acceptable’ norms. You are not responsible for others emotional experiences and you owe them no duty to take care in regards to their emotional experiences, but nor do they owe you any duty of care either. An underlying philosophy is emotional responsibility – that is no one can force you to feel a feeling – you are ultimately the person having the feeling, so the responsibility lies within you. While it is likely unnecessary to state, you get out what you put into T group, meaning if you are actively trying to be negative and generate hurtful feelings, then it is unlikely to be a positive experience. If you are actively trying to attend with curiosity, courage, compassion and presence then you will likely get a lot out of the group.
The main caveats I would like to suggest are these - There are to be no infringements of others personal sovereignty – that means no unwanted physical contact. No threats of unwanted physical contact – including no threats of violence. And lastly no dehumanising language towards others. Dehumanising is any attempt to make them less than a full human being. This can show up sometimes in more subtle ways that you might expect, an example is labelling people in a way that reduces them for example ‘you’re JUST a woman’ or ‘you’re JUST a boy’ might be two examples where the fulness of human experience is reduced down towards a label that partly describes a person but misses the richness of who they are. There are more blatant examples of reducing others via labels but I have yet to see these occur, but for the sake of clarity I suggest we do not be tolerate these within the group. I use the world suggest because as adults I cannot ‘make you’ do anything, and out of respect for that freedom, the strongest I can do is ‘suggest’ or ‘request’ that we follow these caveats.
Lastly, what goes on in T group stays in T group. Once the T group is finished, then that is it until the next session. This includes no side conversations afterwards even with the participants of the T group. This means no talking about the conversation’s others were having in T group. Only with this sense of safety can T group be an effective learning arena.
Good luck in the T-group experience, as a final reminder do your best to be present with a sense of curiosity and learning.
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