Nonverbal Channels Research Articles

Observations on the use of the synallactic group image technique in an after care group

ONE of the consequences of the recent develop ments in the field of psychiatry is that the hospitalization of the psychotic patient has become brief, and the main emphasis of his treatment is placed on his after-care in the community. As a result, one of the main problems of psychiatry is to find new effective ways to help the patient in his effort to reenter and readjust to society. In order to facilitate this transition, a number of tools are available: chemotherapy, milieu therapy. individual, group, family therapy, vocational counseling. Group therapy has a prominent place among these tools as it provides the patient with the group which is a therapeutic micro-society and a laboratory for growth, corrective emotional experience and development and new skills for his transactions. J. Koseff (1975) wrote on the concept of the group as a transitional object, similar to the transitional object the infant finds as a representation of the mother in his effort to master his anxiety in the process of separation (Winnicott, 1971). In this way. the group may help the psychiatric ‘patient just discharged from the hospital to master his anxiety in the process of transition from the hospital to the community. Following is the author’s description of his experience with an after-care group where art was used in the form of punting. The introduction of the non-verbal communication channel through art in this type of group presents certain advantages over other techniques that rely solely on verbal communication. The technique that was used is called Synallactic Group Image Technique; it was developed during the past 15 years by G. Vassiliou (1968). The technique is used in small groups, (up to eight persons) who meet once or twice a week for 60-90 minutes. Each patient paints spontaneously. The group votes at the beginning of the meeting for the painting they will discuss. This procedure gives the therapist a clue as to the direction the group wishes to take. If, for example, the majority votes for the painting of the most resistant member, the therapist will know that the group will try to break the resistance, or that they will join to form a group resistance, by being involved in artistic or philosophical discussions. After the vote for a painting, the painter is invited to teil the group how he felt before, during and after he did the painting, under what circumstances he did it, what it reminds him of, what it means to him, what title he wants to give it. The other members of the group then are invited to express their own associations, projections, feelings. The overlapping of the projections of the group members on one painting per session is called Collective Image. The Collective Image primarily represents the central theme of the session and has a manifest and a latent content. It is utilized in the same way as a dream is. When the therapist is dealing with patients with severe ego defects, he is dealing more with the manifest content of the painting. To the extent of the resulting overlap, channels of communication open. In the beginning the group communicates through the painting in an impersonal, non-threatening way; instead of saying, “You make me nervous,” a member

Responsivity to incongruent verbal and non-verbal communications and A-B therapist type.

The premise that particular personality characteristics of the psychotherapist interact with those of the patient to influence therapeutic outcome has stimulated research. The major part of this has concerned the A-B therapist type variable (2). Although the early studies of the A-B variable involved actual therapists and actual patients, further research has regarded the A-B variable as defining male characterological types, a position having empirical support (3). Viewing the A-B dimension as charanerological has resulted in a burgeoning of research designed to define rhe A and B cype male. Smith (5) summarized this research as suggesting that A males, relative to Bs, tend to be socially cautious, inhibited, desiring of social approval, highly verbal, uninterested in mechanics and mechanical activities, field-dependent, trusting, intropunitive, and collaborative in stress situations, and low in extrapunitive reactions to frustration. In contrast to the A, the B tends ro be risk-taking, socially affiliative, masculine, high in namral science aptitude, interested in engineering, field-independent, suspicious, extrapunitive, and avoidant in stress situations, and extrapunicive in situations of frustration. The present research is an outgrowth of Smith's (5) work, in which he found that As and Bs exhibited significantly different postural and gestural behaviors during dyadic interviews (As being more subtle and cautious than Bs). Based on the over-all pictures . of the A and the B it was hypothesized that As relative ro Bs are more sensitive to the subtle non-verbal channels of communication. If this is true, As and Bs should react differentially to communications in which the verbal and non-verbal channels are incongruent, i.e., As will react more to the non-verbal, Bs to the verbal. Two instruments were employed to investigate the hypothesized differential reactions of As and Bs to incongruent communications. First, was a standardized paper-and-pencil scale (4) in which line drawings depicting emotional states were to be matched with written statements. The second instrument ( I), consisted of videotaped statements of an actor, in which his verbal and non-verbal statements were either congruent or incongruent (the statements involved the dimensions of happy-sad and of superior-inferior). Fifty-eight male undergraduates, designated as As or Bs on the A-B scale, rated the videotaped scenes as to their message, and then were given the Shapiro scale. An analysis of variance gave no differences between As and Bs on either the videoTape ratings or scores on the Shapiro scale. The consistent lack of differences between As and Bs on the two methodologically diverse instruments suggests strongly that the hypothesis is not valid. The data suggest rhe conclusion that As and Bs are. not (as groups) differentially sensitive to non-verbal channels of communication.

Perception of contradictory meanings conveyed by verbal and nonverbal channels.

Perception of contradictory meanings conveyed by verbal and nonverbal channels.

Stuttering as simultaneous admission and denial

There is considerable evidence for the view that neurotic symptoms arise, not because of repressed instincts (as psychoanalysis maintains), but because of unacknowledged real guilt, arising from inappropriate, hidden impulse expression. On the assumption that one of the functions of conscience is to bring about acknowledgment of secret wrongdoing, symptoms in general may be seen as a compromise formation between an impulsion (from conscience or superego) to speak the truth and a conscious (ego-mediated) effort to maintain the concealment. Stuttering may thus be interpreted as a conflict between these two tendercies, operating within the verbal communication channel rather than in a non-verbal channel. This interpretation is valid only if stuttering is a bona fide neurotic symptom, rather than a ‘mere habit’.