The author is Igor Vachkov, candidate of psychological sciences. Source — PSYCHOLOGY OF A NEW ERA
The principles put forward as the main representatives of various directions of the group movement sometimes radically contradict each other. Some «group leaders» sin with frank eclecticism, proclaiming practical efficiency as their only principle.
Let’s try to understand the diversity of existing types and subspecies of training groups. Such a classification can be carried out in different ways, depending on the criteria chosen.
The first criterion is the goals of the group (see Fig. 1).
A fairly wide range of methods of group psychological influence is systematically outlined and analyzed in the work of K. Rudestam (1990) (see Table 1). In his classification of types of groups, Rudestam relies on the two most significant parameters — the degree to which the leader plays a leading role in the structuring and functioning of the group and the degree of emotional stimulation as opposed to rational thinking. This is the second and third classification criteria.
Unfortunately, such a classification forces us to include groups of the same type in different classes, since, in particular, T-groups can have either a rational or an affective orientation, depending on the specific task or topic. Meeting groups can be either leader-centered or participant-centered.
The fourth criterion is the direction of psychological influence either on various aspects of the inner world or on forms of behavior. J. Godfroy (1992) proposes to divide the methods of psychotherapy into two categories: intrapsychic and behavioral. Since the group movement grew out of psychotherapy, it seems legitimate to extend this classification to the methods of training work (see Fig. 2).
According to Godefroy, intrapsychic therapy is based on the principle that psychological problems and destructive behavior of a person are the result of an inadequate interpretation of his feelings, needs and motives, that is, an inadequacy of self-consciousness. The goal of therapy is to help a person understand the reasons for his poor adjustment to reality and to enable him to adapt to it by changing himself and his behavior.
Behavioral therapy, based on the principle that all human behavior is learned, attempts to use conditioning methods or models to replace a person’s inappropriate behavior with another that would allow him to act more adequately.
Thus, “if intrapsychic therapy involves influencing the perception, thoughts and motivations of a person, then behavioral therapy seeks only to change or eliminate in him those forms of behavior that will be considered non-adaptive” (J. Godefroy, 1992, p. 157-158).
According to this classification, groups of intrapsychic direction include: encounter groups, gestalt groups, transactional analysis groups, psychoanalytic groups, groups using psychosynthesis, art therapy groups. Behavior therapy oriented groups include T-groups, body and dance therapy groups, skills training and NLP groups, psychodrama groups.
Since the group movement grew out of psychotherapy, this classification can be extended to methods of training work.
The fifth criterion is the composition of the participants. Differences between the contingent of participants are determined by age, profession, level of intelligence and education, personal characteristics, etc. In this case, we can distinguish such types of training as:
— youth training
— training for teachers;
— parent-child training;
— training for parents of children with disabilities;
— training for high school students;
— managerial training;
— leadership training, etc.
At the same time, the content of each of these trainings can be determined by the specific tasks facing the facilitator and the special requests of the participants.
The sixth criterion is the problems that concern the participants associated with the insufficient formation of certain skills. Possible types of training groups:
— training of the most important life skills;
— tolerance training;
— training of interpersonal relations;
— self-confidence training;
— adaptation training;
— training of effective communications, etc.
The seventh criterion is the degree to which the tasks of the group are related to the main areas of psychological practice — psychotherapy, psychocorrection, development and training. From here the trainings can be divided into:
— therapeutic trainings;
— developmental trainings;
— psychocorrectional groups;
— training and demonstration trainings.
Of course, the number of selected criteria cannot be considered exhaustive, and the coverage of training types is not complete. But even the above classification possibilities clearly show how diverse the types of existing training groups can be.