Free The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom, Molyn Leszcz Page A

heard a group member say, “This is the first time I have ever told this to anyone”? The group members are not strangers. Quite the contrary: they know one another deeply and fully. Yes, it is true that members spend only a small fraction of their lives together. But psychological reality is not equivalent to physical reality. Psychologically, group members spend infinitely more time together than the one or two meetings a week when they physically occupy the same office.

    OVERVIEW
    Let us now return to the primary task of this chapter: to define and describe the therapeutic factor of interpersonal learning. All the necessary premises have been posited and described in this discussion of:
1. The importance of interpersonal relationships
2. The corrective emotional experience
3. The group as a social microcosm
    I have discussed these components separately. Now, if we recombine them into a logical sequence, the mechanism of interpersonal learning as a therapeutic factor becomes evident:
I. Psychological symptomatology emanates from disturbed interpersonal relationships. The task of psychotherapy is to help the client learn how to develop distortion-free, gratifying interpersonal relationships.
II. The psychotherapy group, provided its development is unhampered by severe structural restrictions, evolves into a social microcosm, a miniaturized representation of each member’s social universe.
III. The group members, through feedback from others, self-reflection, and self-observation, become aware of significant aspects of their interpersonal behavior: their strengths, their limitations, their interpersonal distortions, and the maladaptive behavior that elicits unwanted responses from other people. The client, who will often have had a series of disastrous relationships and subsequently suffered rejection, has failed to learn from these experiences because others, sensing the person’s general insecurity and abiding by the rules of etiquette governing normal social interaction, have not communicated the reasons for rejection. Therefore, and this is important, clients have never learned to discriminate between objectionable aspects of their behavior and a self-concept as a totally unacceptable person. The therapy group, with its encouragement of accurate feedback, makes such discrimination possible.
IV. In the therapy group, a regular interpersonal sequence occurs:
a. Pathology display: the member displays his or her behavior.
b. Through feedback and self-observation, clients
1. become better witnesses of their own behavior;
2. appreciate the impact of that behavior on
a. the feelings of others;
b. the opinions that others have of them;
c. the opinions they have of themselves.
V. The client who has become fully aware of this sequence also becomes aware of personal responsibility for it: each individual is the author of his or her own interpersonal world.
VI. Individuals who fully accept personal responsibility for the shaping of their interpersonal world may then begin to grapple with the corollary of this discovery: if they created their social-relational world, then they have the power to change it.
VII. The depth and meaningfulness of these understandings are directly proportional to the amount of affect associated with the sequence. The more real and the more emotional an experience, the more potent is its impact; the more distant and intellectualized the experience, the less effective is the learning.
VIII. As a result of this group therapy sequence, the client gradually changes by risking new ways of being with others. The likelihood that change will occur is a function of
a. The client’s motivation for change and the amount of personal discomfort and dissatisfaction with current modes of behavior;
b. The client’s involvement in the group—that is, how much the client allows the group to matter;
c. The rigidity of the client’s character structure and interpersonal style.
IX. Once change, even modest change,