A Personal Growth Program for Self-Directed Groups

Abstract

Twenty-four vocational rehabilitation clients participated in a nineday "Self-Improvement Workshop." They met in self-directed groups of approximately eight persons for two, two-hour sessions a day, using a set of program materials recorded on audio-tape. The program materials were designed to enhance opportunities for selfexploration and personal growth by presenting a series of interpersonal exercises. Results indicate that the subjects using the program materialswere enabled to become more open, sensitive to others, self-accept-ing, and self-motivating, as measured by a battery of pre-, post-,session-by-session, and daily instruments. Control subjects whowere given no group experience showed no such changes. This study is part of the continuing research activity on self-di-rected groups that has been conducted at the Western BehavioralSciences Institute since 1960 (Berzon & Solomon, 1964; Solomon,Berzon, & Weedman, 1968). The current paper describes an experi-mental evaluation of the authors' second effort to enhance personalgrowth in a self-directed small group through the use of programmaterials.' This effort, much more than the previous one, empha-sizes experiential over cognitive learning.