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Gain positive experience, learn a lesson, discover new abilities in yourself – a person’s personality develops as he moves along his life path. The type of training that is gaining popularity today can also become a catalyst for this development.
Georgy, 37, is an artist; there are dozens of books with his illustrations on the shelves in his office. He was ten years old when his father bought on occasion a luxurious gift edition with Beardsley’s engravings: “I fell in love with this graphics: I looked at it for hours, repeated it on paper. I didn’t succeed, I was desperate, but I tried again and again. Gradually, from an insatiable need to repeat Beardsley’s drawings, a desire grew: I would be an artist.
“I was 26 years old, I had a good job, a calm and measured life,” recalls 30-year-old Irina. “But I didn’t think about why I work here, why I communicate with these people. Everything changed when I was diagnosed with a rare vascular disease. In a very short time, I actually forgot how to walk. The doctors said it might be forever. I remember that night in the hospital, when I was lying and thinking how stupid I lived, how little I saw and managed. I think it was the most important night of my life. In the morning I woke up and decided: I will do everything to get up. And, if I succeed, I will live in a completely different way. Six months later, I started walking.” Irina believes that she recovered thanks to yoga. “During the classes, I met people who helped me fill my life with meaning.”
People, events, books, films about which we can say: “This is what changed me” play the role of a development catalyst in our life, allow us to find hidden resources in ourselves, that is, they contribute to our personal growth.
What does “personal growth” mean and how training can help
“Personal growth, or, in other words, personal development, is something that inevitably happens to each of us in the process of life,” says Adolf Harash, a psychotherapist, leader of personal growth training. – Any event, meeting with a person is a chance to gain experience, learn a lesson, discover new abilities in yourself. All this is personal growth, ideally leading us to wisdom.
But not everyone gets to share events that promote development, and not everyone manages to independently understand their meaning. Personal growth training helps to learn how to interact with one’s own soul, to better understand oneself. “After the age of 25, we go through several psychological crises. You can experience them yourself, but this process is often very difficult and long. Personal growth trainings help you get through crises and give you the opportunity to benefit from them for yourself, for your development, ”explains psychotherapist Dmitry Shevchenko.
Who needs personal growth training?
The desire for a better life – full, meaningful and interesting – is familiar to each of us. Therefore, working on personal growth is not a matter of necessity, but of personal choice. Those who feel that they are not using their resources to the end, who at some point lose their goals and cannot find new ones, are most likely in need of personal growth and professional support. In addition, personal growth can be a natural extension of psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy for everyone
The term “personal growth” appeared in America in the 60s. At this time, called the “open decade”, the ideology of Western society changed: democracy began to be understood primarily as the recognition of the value of the minority – ethnic, religious, sexual. The individual man, his unique personality, has become the subject of intense scrutiny.
At the same time, the method of group work was developing in psychology. “Psychotherapy, which was previously an exclusively elitist, cabinet occupation (one on one), literally and figuratively “came into the air,” says Leonid Krol, director of the Institute of Group and Family Psychology and Psychotherapy. – Classes were held in parks and squares. At these group meetings (sessions), people communicated with each other, danced, sang, drew, that is, they expressed themselves and their feelings in a variety of ways.
Today, these meetings are attended by those who have a great need to know themselves, understand their goals or find them, and those who are ready to take professional help and improve their lives.
Find a resource and learn how to manage it
At the heart of psychotherapeutic work with personal growth are the ideas of humanistic psychology. In contrast to Freudianism, psychologists of this trend did not consider the influence of early childhood experience to be decisive for a person’s personality. Abraham Maslow, Erich Fromm and Carl Rogers proceeded from the assumption that each person has a need to know himself and has the potential for continuous development, that is, for personal growth. Therefore, the role of a psychologist and psychotherapist is to help a person to know their resources and effectively manage them.
Most often, work with personal growth takes place as part of a training – a group session conducted by a professional psychologist-consultant (or psychotherapist), trainer. Unlike a psychotherapeutic group, in which each participant solves his own special psychological problems, the work in the training always has a common goal: it can be self-confidence training, or communication training, or, in our case, personal growth training.
Today in Russia, personal growth trainings are called various forms of interaction between people: personal growth groups proper (with a small number of participants), network (corporate) and mass trainings.
How are the trainings going?
The most common option: for 3–5 days, a group of 10–20 people works for several hours. Some groups meet once a week in the evenings for 2-3 months. The duration of the work depends on the needs of the participants and on how quickly they achieve the goal. Training can be organized in different ways, depending on the psychotherapeutic orientation of the trainer.
However, there are also common features. Training is, first of all, the communication of the leader with the group as a whole and with each individual, as well as the communication of all participants in the training with each other. A person receives new information about himself and knowledge about how to change his life precisely as a result of interaction organized in a special, special way.
Types of training
Personal Growth Group
Usually it is attended by 10-20 regular participants. “Everyone gets the opportunity, in a safe environment and with the help of other people, to explore their inner world, find out their strengths and weaknesses and work out individual psychological problems,” explains Dmitry Shevchenko. The training is conducted by a professional psychologist or psychotherapist. Its main task is to provide an atmosphere in which any participant would feel comfortable and be able to establish accepting relationships with others that contribute to the development of each.
Network training
Usually it is offered to their employees by companies that practice direct sales (from person to person), organized on a network basis (for example, some brands of cosmetics are sold this way). Under the motto of personal growth, communicative training (or sales training) is most often hidden here. With the help of role-playing games, participants master elementary communication skills, train the ability to withstand pressure, and learn to influence other people.
Network training is related to personal growth in only one narrow sense. The company convinces each employee that he belongs to the elite, and personal growth is considered the main condition for professional success. “Working in network companies gives many people the opportunity to realize themselves professionally. And in this sense, such work really contributes to personal growth,” says Leonid Krol.
When participating in network training, you must be aware that its effectiveness for an individual may be low, because its individual goals and characteristics are not taken into account.
Mass training
It is actively promoted by training centers that work on the principle of a pyramid: bring your friends and you will get a discount. The training consists of several stages, passing which a person receives payment discounts and the opportunity to become one of the elite – along with trainers, assistants and advanced participants.
From 50 to several hundred people are involved in the work at the same time. “The effectiveness of any training also depends on the number of participants,” explains Leonid Krol. – With their increase, it decreases. Therefore, it is not worth pinning hopes on serious changes as a result of such work.”
Mass training satisfies, first of all, a person’s need to feel like a member of a special community. “First of all, this is a show, the purpose of which is an external effect, the beauty of action,” continues Leonid Krol. “Personal growth under such conditions is difficult to achieve.” A side effect of participating in such training can be a strong emotional decline at the end of it, not everyone can cope with it on their own.
How to choose the right training?
First of all, you need to determine which form of work suits you best. Ask friends who have had similar experiences. It may be best for you to work individually with a psychotherapist.
High-quality personal growth trainings are conducted by specialized centers that practice psychotherapy and psychological counseling. The leader of the personal growth training must have a psychological education and a certificate in one or more psychotherapeutic methods of work.
There is no free personal growth training. Almost certainly, they will try to convince its participants to take the next, paid stage of training. You should not trust trainings that are inadequately expensive or built on the principle of a pyramid.