Group Encounters of the Third Kind

Abstract

Group Encounters of the Third Kind Robert Schulte1 issn 0362-4021 © 2015 Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society group, Vol. 39, No. 4, Winter 2015 335 1 Private practice, Alexandria, VA. Correspondence should be addressed to Robert Schulte, MSW, 1204 Prince Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. E-mail: bobgroup@aol.com. Who are you people? —Roy Neary, protagonist, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) This title pays homage to the Spielberg science fiction adventure about a seemingly unrelated collection of people cosmically chosen to have an intimate encounter with extraterrestrial beings. The film thematically explores the human urge to make intimate contact with what is felt to be alien yet strangely familiar—a cinematic metaphor par excellence for introducing my topics of dynamic group therapy and theater. In my professional universe, I routinely conduct group encounters whereby strangers come together to share otherworldly experiences—like acting in a play and relating in a therapy group. ENACTMENT, REFLECTION, AND MEANING MAKING Both dynamic group therapy and theater rely on these interpenetrating processes to achieve life-enhancing goals of mutual recognition and communal well-being (Grossmark, 2007a; Moreno, 1973; Rutan, Stone, & Shay, 2014). Whether scripted for actors or unconsciously co-created by group members themselves, enactments are a complex blend of trauma-tinged past, present, and imagined future, expressed through here-and-now interaction. Reflection and meaning making are the ongoing responsibility of all, director and actors and therapist and group members. Understanding these unfolding processes of enactment, reflection, and meaning making is key to effectively conducting dynamic group therapy. The process of moving through conflict and impasse to a transient place of mutual recognition and 336 schulte communal well-being is continually recurring in therapy groups. In his paper “The Rhythm of the Group,” Robert Grossmark (2007b) identifies two basic resources that are strategically useful to a group caught in the grips of a potentially destructive unconscious enactment: the “very multiplicity of the group members themselves” and the therapist’s empathic efforts at “being-with-the-group” (p. 531). Translated into the dialogue of a sci-fi movie character, “We are not alone. There is intelligent life beyond and all around us. We must join and attune, not reject or attack.” These ideas return me to the final scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which a “response and reply” musical sequence is initiated with the mother ship of the extraterrestrials. A five-tone pattern of notes sent by the humans is ultimately received, accepted, and returned in kind. This cinematic confirmation of intelligent life in the great beyond moves me to view the entire film again, appreciative of the prescient anticipation of interactive technologies yet to be imagined. DYNAMIC GROUPS In this article, I strive to convey a sense of the holding and healing potential of dynamically interactive groups by sharing encounters from my own life journey as a group therapist and theater director. I begin with a vignette from a recent group therapy session. My mixed adult therapy group, composed of three men and two women, had reached an impasse of the most stubborn kind. The therapist (me) and a group member, Dana (not her real name), reactively clashed one night over her contempt for my incompetence for the proverbial one hundredth time. Over the years, Dana has routinely challenged me in a familiar pattern, whereby she would attempt to displace me and establish herself as the alpha dog in the group room, just as she managed to do as a child in her otherwise all-male sibling group. In a perfect world, Dana would love to dominate the pack of group therapy dogs while contemptuously dismissing me—as she had her ineffectual mother—like an unwelcome stray cat. I am aware that Dana and I are both sensitive souls with tough exteriors, having been wounded early in life by a too-aggressive opposite-sex parent and left unprotected by a too-passive same-sex parent. So if I challenge Dana’s power play, she is likely to feel unsupported and criticized by me. If she counters with contempt, I can too easily feel demeaned and insulted. With assistance from the other group members, she and I have moved through...