Working on Agendas
Basic Framework of a Group Session
Agenda as a Springboard
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First off - as in HLSC 1220 and other type group, some
groups use themes and group unfolds from their
That’s okay and that might happen for some of your
group sessions
Agenda type groups, have the capacity for group
members to take greater responsibility for there own
work
Agenda as a Springboard
• Personal issues we want to work on “personal agenda” related
to personal goals and client issues
• Personal agenda usually involve distressing issues or events
going outside of group (there and then)
• Personal agendas are not an end itself, but become
springboard for all members interactions
• Eventually one members personal agenda will tie into all
members interpersonal functioning in one’s lifeworld
Balancing Two Elements
Support and Challenge
• Support: a group members agenda is treated with
sensitivity and explored until a full picture is
revealed
• The “whole group engages with this specific
person” group invested in giving empathic,
support and “honest”response”
Balancing Two Elements
Support and Challenge
• Challenge: Initially geared toward then and
there and then shifted to individual
perceptions within the group
• Thus, group will examine actual reactions
evoked during group interaction shedding light
on individual behavioural patterns
Balancing Two Elements
Support and Challenge (cont.).
• Thus the challenging, inquiring into, expressing
differences, similarities, processing, experiencing
group interactions over a series of sessions brings
about the possibility for insight, awareness, different
ways of being, seeing and behaving
• Although
“some” group members need more support
than others, a wise balance of support and challenge
from all group members promotes the optimal qualities
necessary for change toward reaching one’s goals
Getting an Agenda Contract:
Method One
1. During check in a group member(s) may
express a strong emotion, an important
development or an issue…
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The leader then will ask the group member(s) if
they would like to put this on the agenda to be a
work item
Method 2:
Agenda Go Round
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Agenda go around, similar to check-in, Leader specifically asks
members to make explicit what issues they would like to work on in
Everyone takes responsibilities for what is worked on
Group leader let’s everyone know that every agenda may not be able to
be explored due to given time
Agendas are chosen on the urgency, emotions running the highest,
potentially who hasn’t presented as issue, member issue who may
facilitate whole group moving to a new stage in “group as a whole
process”
When there is no Agenda…
Dealing with Reluctance
• No agenda’s arise, group leader can open the floor to
explore why this might be so
• What would make the group members safe to share an
agenda…? What might the group need?
• Help fully express fears, and reinforce safety
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Explore to ensure if members “reluctance” is a personal issue itself
(low sense of self worth) or that group members don’t think there
agenda is big enough or important enough to work on
This then gets explored!
Unpacking the Agenda Issue:
Help Client…
• Describe the problem / issue
• It’s History / How got started
• Impact of the has one’s life
Group listens for these!
• Involvement in problem
• Personal reaction
• How one is entangled
• How one creates or attaches to the problem
Providing Help With Self-Disclosure
• If agenda is presented vaguely - goal is for group to
clarify the agenda, its details, missing pieces, etc.
• Are feelings and thought congruent
• Is the group member sharing about their agenda,
there problem or are they story telling, deflecting,
blaming, sidestepping, or not getting the point
• Steer toward more personal - bring there and then
into here and now
Listening for the Core Issue
• Leader and group member’s job is to focus intently and sort through
the member’s experience and interpersonal relationships in his/her
own mind
• Ask questions, bring hunches into the here and now, how of what
they are saying is affecting you? The other group members?
• How would these reactions be similar in the lifeworld of the member
sharing
Listening for the Core Issue (cont).
COntd
• We are listening for clues, dynamics, and the implications of
the these dynamics
• Thus - how would the folks in the persons life be reacting,
point these out to the group member? How are you affected
by what you are hearing?
• Where does the pattern need to be changed? Does it, this is
then relayed to the group member
Fears that Block Sharing
• Rejection
• Judgment
• Pressure to perform
• Looking Stupid
• Burdening others
• Discovering abnormal patterns
• Attack
• Not be able to cope once opening up
Fears that Block Sharing
(contd).
• To work thru the latter…. we build culture of safety
• Danger of being too honest too soon
• Watch overstimulating too soon
Guessing (p. 151).
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Have group guess or imagine what the speaking member’s feelings are
or what the personal struggle is
“Now we have a pretty good picture of Matt’s story. I wonder, as you
were listening to Matt, what feelings did you guess Matt might be
experiencing under these circumstances…”
• Now that Matt has opening up about his feelings of abandonment and how it
ties into his struggles in life I want everyone to take sometime to imagine
what if would be like to grow as Matt? And when you are ready dive in and
directly speak to Matt.
similar experiences…
• As Matt is sharing his experiences of anxiety does that
strike a cord with any of you?
• I wonder what issues of your own may have been awakened
as you heard Matt’s story?
• Leader can also summarize group members similar themes
similar experiences…
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Leader can also summarize group members similar themes or better yet
link together Matt’s experience and Jane’s experience and then prompt
members to see if they can see this link… or find similar links not yet
stated
Finally, the leader must also validate group feelings and tone of what the
group as a collective is not ready to validate. (pg. 154).
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For instance… “I sense the group is tentative right now and does not
want to address Tracy’s deeper feelings for the moment. I can see
the group cares about Tracy and does not want her to feel more
vulnerable than she does (give group time to respond).
Facilitating Feedback Giving
Thrid
3rd Element of Working on Agendas
The Power of Feedback
• There is no better way to gain self-awareness than
through giving and receiving feedback
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Has to be sufficient and honest (degree of honesty
is reflected in group stage)
Group is the mirror
It’s all about reality testing
All members must be directed toward giving and
receiving feedback
Principles of Feedback-Giving
CAVEAT It is better to risk giving a contribution and be
off the target than to withhold true feelings
Feedback needs to have an emotional component on
part of the giver
Feedback needs to convey some message about the
relationship between the giver and recipient
Giver of feedback needs to take some risk in
disclosing communication
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a) Identifying old patterns
b) Connecting seemingly unrelated issues
c) Providing vision for the future
Identifying old
patterns
Soften old pattern (by elucidating its
function)
After listening to Andrew, what pattern do we see
running through his life?
How has it served him?
How can we thank this pattern?
And how does everyone here think that this pattern
now hinders him in his current life?
Connecting the Dots
Shutting of the fuel by piecing together
seemingly unrelated themes
Leader states and report client themes, he / she
then offers a a hypothesis as to how they might be
connected or potentially how one triggers the other
The leader then gets the group members to reflect
on this hypothesis and then directly address what
they heard, and then they relay there ideas to the
working agenda group member
Feedback as a Vision for the
Future
Third basic type of feedback
Leader gets the group to consider what
challenges the working agenda member has
to take on so that in years from now he / she
will be able to look back without regret
Redirecting unhelpful Feedback
During the processing of the agenda on the
floor the leader also has to watch for
unhelpful feedback and redirect feedback that
is
Problem solving in nature
Indirect
Jumbled
Have important insights but are stated in-concisely
For example: “Joe your probe into John’s problem has
some merit, but can you be a more clear. I heard you say
this and you were asking him what exactly”?
Teaching Members to Receive
Feedback
Helping “Agenda working member” to receive
feedback
Redirect immediate respond
Encourage recipient to sit with feelings (allow time to
sink in)
Beware of how feedback feels in the body
Have recipient report on what he / she heard - do they
understand what, how, and why of what was stated?
If feedback is disputed by recipient, leader can say something like this…
“Joe, four members have made similar comments to you… It appears that
you have difficulty listening to this feedback… My invitation is for you to
listen to these consistent themes because feedback that comes from so
many people is likely to have a certain degree of validity”
Inviting Reaction To Feedback
After group has offered feedback invite working group
member to share how feedback affected him / her
Among the feedback - what struck you the most?
After all this feedback Joe how are you feelings?
“I can see Joe that this is lot of for to take in… Maybe
right now your tears are enough…? If you are okay
here, let’s explore Keith’s agenda and well come back
to anything that feels important for you to report on
then… Is that okay?”
Allowing Clients to Express
Newly Surfaced Feelings
Completing experience of emotional integration
Finishing the processing of agenda and feedback loop
leads back to the working agenda member where we
give them a chance to elucidate any new feelings
We watch their non-verbals to see if they are being
honest
“Having worked on your agenda, your started with… I
wonder how you are feelings / thinking about it now
and what new feelings surfaced, or potential insights
are arose can you share that”?
Making Transition to Agenda
Early in group transitions will need to be explicit
‘Joe you have done some great work today, do you have
anything else to report or say…?’ ‘Okay folks, now we have
three other members in check-in who stated they would like
to work on some stuff, who would like to begin’…?
You can state there names…
Watch their expressions or perhaps during Joe’s work,
another group members immediacy will have trumped the
latter three need to express and work on their issues (at least
in the present moment)
The Principle of
Half and Half
The Task of and Relationship
Aspects of Agendas
In each session there are two vital
happenings:
1. Task of working on agendas and; 2. the relationships
among members, with all their interpersonal styles being
invisible in the room
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The leaders intervenes on both of these levels - thus half the energy is
spent on working on the presenting member’s agenda items, and
The other half should be spent on helping members raise their awareness
of their given interpersonal process and communication styles that colour
their interpersonal relationships
Interpersonal Process as the
Gold Mine of Group Work
While working on agendas we are watching how others interact: some
rescue, some don’t say anything, some are triggered, some ask
questions that are irrelevant, some shut down around certain topics,
some get angry.
The leader must be ready to to take members recurrent patterns by the
horn, making the interpersonal process the grist for the group
In the forming stage we redirect less intense affects, get the story,
deepen some process toward getting the pattern, see the pattern
thoroughly but wait to dive deeper or wait to help the member to see
pattern when time is right…
But as we deepen the process, the leader will use other techniques to
render interpersonal process more clearly for the group and its members
(help them focus on it)
Applauding Members’ Progress
and Effective Behaviors
Work on both maladaptive patterns, but strengthen healthy ones
Applaud the subtle changes and risk taking
Leader tracks members progress, whenever there is sign of strength,
wisdom, sense of humor, creative talents, the leader needs to call on it,
affirm it, amplify it, and celebrate it
Leader needs to be a group historian remember each members goals
and how each specific issue has developed, share how the group
member has shifted
Intervening When Members
Exhibit
Maladaptive Behaviors
Use gentle language - however, point out what you are seeing!!!
1. Domineering behaviors: “Mary, let’s hold on for a moment… I noticed
that many members in the group are trying to say something. Let’s
give everyone an equal chance”.
2. Quiet members / Isolated members: “Let’s stop for a moment we have
heard a lot from Bill, Jane, Mary, Keith, John, and Lisa, but Mark,
Katie, Joanne, and Eric, you been very quiet… Lets have a change and
start with feedback from you folks today”!
3. Members Who Talk about, instead of to, Other members: member is
usually trying to stay safe or not wanting to own what he / she is really
saying “Ethan I noticed that you just spoke about Katie even though
she is sitting here… Would you speak directly to her (ask to make eye
contact)”.
Redirecting Attention Away from
the Leader
Group members have a tendency to focus on the
leader unless the leader encourages them to speak to
the entire group
Thus the leader when speaking and listening to other
group members behaviourally demonstrates
A. Making eye contact with all group members
B. Scan entire room consistently
C. Signal to member to talk to everyone by making sweeping
gesture
Let’s Get into
• Existential Group and Disease Model
Theory!!!!!!!!!!!