Group Work

A Humanistic and Skills Building Approach

Urania Glassman

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781412966634, 9781412966627
• eBook ISBN: 9781483342986
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Sozialarbeit

A book that supports the human spirit and the humanistic visions of those who champion personal and social change through the social work group….

The Second Edition of Group Work: A Humanistic and Skills Building Approach identifies the humanistic values and democratic norms that guide the group practitioner?s interventions. The book presents seven stage themes of group development, 29 techniques for group work practice, and more than 60 new illustrations from contemporary group work. The Second Edition remains centered on the role of the social group work practitioner, who employs group work methods to further the personal growth and empowerment of members in community and institutional contexts.

Features of the Second Edition:

· Offers 29 new descriptions of group work practice techniques, which have applicability in clinical, support, and organizational groups

· Provides seven stage themes of group development, describing member reactions and highlighting worker pitfalls, self-awareness issues, and skills for maximizing member growth within each stage

· Presents 60 new illustrations of group meetings, which demonstrate the practitioner role and conclude with discussion and analysis

· Includes an updated Chapter 10, which highlights ethical values in mental health, substance abuse treatment, and health care groups

Intended Audience

This is an ideal core text for advance undergraduate and graduate courses such as Group Work, Foundation Practice, Skills of Counseling, and Group Dynamics in the fields of social work, psychology, and counseling.

PART I

Dimensions of the Humanistic Approach

1

Humanistic Values and Democratic Norms

Equal Rights

Membership in a humanistic group that values the individual and fosters responsibility for others supports and enhances social and mental health by creating a little pocket of humanistic egalitarian life that is realistic and healing. Caring, mutual aid, cooperation, inclusivity, open participation, nonelitism, and respect for differences are types of interactions that are necessary for the creation of this kind of milieu (Glassman & Kates, 1986a). One need only have lived under totalitarian regimes from Argentina to Greece, South Africa, or Iran (Theodorakis, 1973; Timerman, 1981; Nafisi, 2003), or heard about them from refugees (A. Balakhaneh, personal communication, 2005; M. Fahimi, personal communication, 2001; Glassman & Skolnik, 1984) or political prisoners, to sustain the conviction that a democratic, humanistic group is a fundamental means for achieving enhanced mental and social health.

The timeless nature of these ethics is well stated in the words of Neva Boyd (1971), originally written half a century ago:

Social group work is the promotion and leadership . . . of mutual participation groups in which the members participate collectively in the feeling, thinking, and action involved in carrying out communal interests. The psychological essence of such experience for the participants is psychological intimacy. (p. 141)

Mutual participant groups reveal a possible gradation from those characterized by individuation to those characterized by collectivism. . . . The group that is responsible for its own destiny is forced to solve its own problems; hence everything that concerns any aspect of it becomes a group responsibility. This is a type of democratic collectivism in which the rights of the individual are neither exercised at the sacrifice of those of the group, nor subordinated to them, but are preserved as an essential part of the whole. (p. 148)

Expression of humanistic values and democratic norms reveals the practitioner’s basic convictions about the members’ and other people’s worth. These attitudes and actions are messages to the members about how they may connect to and challenge one another meaningfully and productively. The practitioner’s ability to own and express humanistic values and democratic norms is essential for achieving caring interactions among members in the social work group. The ability to own and use these norms is as important as, if not more important than, the practitioner’s ability to use a set of behavioral skills or group work techniques. The use of practice techniques without values and norms is dangerous when they are used prescriptively to control, dominate, or coerce without respect for members’ rights to determine their own processes and goals.

Furthermore, practitioners’ lack of appreciation of the qualities of humanistic values and democratic norms may give rise to elitist attitudes. Using knowledge of human behavior and development that is devoid of values may effect an aloof image that does not permit the members to hold the practitioner accountable for his or her attempts to influence the members. By contrast, the group practitioner who uses the humanistic form represents its democratic standards by example, as well as by engaging with the members fully as the group evolves its experiences. The practitioner explicitly invokes sanctions against acts of physical violence, emotional violation, character assassination, acts of stereotyping, stigmatizing, scapegoating, and other attacking behaviors. All else in the process—a full range of emotions and activities—is grist for the mill for interaction, learning, and change.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES

Social group workers have contributed to the efforts to understand the helpful and dangerous aspects of small groups. They have played an important part in the development of democratic practices in group process. Writings in group work in the past century by Bernstein (1973), Coyle (1948/1978), Garvin (1997), Gitterman and Shulman (2005), Klein (1953), Konopka (1978, 1983), Schwartz (1961), and Trecker (1972) reflect a historical commitment to motivating and sustaining an ethical and humane social system. These practitioner-scholars have used the small face-to-face group to educate members for citizenship and to expand members’ economic and educational opportunities. Group workers have traditionally used the small group to educate, remediate, and empower members to meet their needs in their communities, whether these are in their natural social situations or institutional ones. Groups are formed in child guidance clinics, senior centers, medical centers, and in-patient and out-patient mental health settings, as well as in HIVAIDS clinics, in domestic violence shelters, with the homeless, in substance abuse treatment, and with at-risk parents, foster parents, and foster children. These group experiences represent efforts to maximize participation and empowerment for people who may be economically disadvantaged and socially ostracized.

Efforts to define what is uniquely social group work have been made by contemporary theoreticians and practitioners such as Baruch Levine (1991), Garland, Jones, and Kolodny (1973), Garvin (1997), Gitterman and Shulman (2005), Lang (1981), and Papell and Rothman (1980b) in North America and Masanek (2001) in Europe. These colleagues have presented models including practice principles and skills that embrace humanistic values and democratic standards for the group’s milieu. These efforts underline the necessity of using practice skills that express the values of the group work method to develop the group as a democratic helping system.

VALUES OF THE HUMANISTIC GROUP

The following are the values that comprise the nature of the humanistic approach to group work practice:

Humanistic Value 1: People have inherent worth and equal right to opportunity regardless of race, class, status, age, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, as well as physical and psychological condition.

Humanistic Value 2: People are responsible for and to one another because social interdependence is a natural and necessary human characteristic.

Humanistic Value 3: People have a right to belong to and be included in socially and emotionally supportive systems.

Humanistic Value 4: People, having emotional and intellectual voices, have a right to take part and to be heard.

Humanistic Value 5: People have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

Humanistic Value 6: People who are different enrich one another.

Humanistic Value 7: People have a right to freedom of choice to determine their own destinies.

Humanistic Value 8: People have the right to question and challenge those professionals who have an authority role in their lives.

These humanistic values are fundamental and indisputable in group work. Evolving and sustaining them requires effort and conviction. The professional group worker must be willing to struggle with the group in order to have these emotional, social, and philosophical frames of reference bring about processes that lead the members to hold these values as uppermost. Acceptance of these values is but the first step in the process. The members will have to express these values through their actions and in the quality of their interactions with one another.

DEMOCRATIC NORMS AS VALUES IN ACTION

The roots of a democratic culture do not lie in its theories and conceptions, but rather in conduct and its satisfactions.

—Lindeman, 1980

Group norms are the implicit and explicit standards developed in the members’ transactions that guide their behavior. Norms develop in groups in a variety of complex ways. They develop through the planned as well as unplanned efforts of the participants; they also develop through the power and influence of those, including the practitioner, who are exerting leadership. There are no guarantees that a group’s norms will be humane and democratic. Group norms that are based on the domination by a powerful clique, or that foster exclusion, can develop all too easily. By contrast, democratic norms are those standards that operationalize humanistic values, the substance of the social group work process.

Having a set of humanistic values without the capacity to follow through in behavior can be an empty gesture. Humanistic values and democratic standards are too important to the evolving process of social group work to be left to develop by chance. Without a planned and concerted effort by the practitioner to express these, there are no assurances that the humanistic, democratic culture will come about. There are also no assurances that members will hear the person with unique characteristics, or that they will make decisions that respect the positions of the members in the minority. Furthermore, there are no guarantees that members will reach out to connect to others without aggression. The practitioner has a fundamental ethical obligation and all-important practice role to play in affecting how the members value and interact with one another. The practitioner must be the most active proponent of these values until the members demonstrate their abilities to sustain them.

HUMANISTIC VALUES 1–4

This section examines Humanistic Values 1, 2, 3, and 4 as they are expressed by the practitioner. How each value is enacted through a set of democratic norms that set standards for humanistic relationships among members will be presented. The role of the practitioner will be delineated and demonstrated through practice illustrations. (See Table 1.1 at the end of this chapter for a summary of values, norms, and practitioner roles.) In Chapter 2, Humanistic Values 5, 6, 7, and 8 are similarly presented (see Table 2.1 in the next chapter for a further summary).

Humanistic Value 1: People Have Inherent Worth and Equal Right to Opportunity Regardless of Race, Class, Status, Age, Gender, and Sexual Orientation, as Well as Physical and Psychological Condition

This value underlies all others in the formation of the humanistic group. It places emphasis on the individual as possessing a unique spirit and energy. Incorporating this value in the group sets the stage for subsequent ways in which members perceive, help, and work with one another. It helps the members develop an egalitarian milieu, rather than an elitist one that would undermine the efforts and strivings of some of the members.

Democ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Practice Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Humanism and Democracy
• PART I. DIMENSIONS OF THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH
• PART II. DUAL OBJECTIVES AND TECHNIQUES OF HUMANISTIC GROUP WORK
• PART III. DIFFERENTIAL APPLICATION OF THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH
• PART IV. PRACTICE VARIATIONS AND CONTINGENCIES
• References
• Index
• About the Author