Facilitating Group Reflection Paper

Facilitating group, was a new experience for me. At my practicum, I do not have the opportunity to facilitate or co-facilitate any type of group. As I began to think about what my intended direction was for the group, I wasn’t sure if I needed to have an agenda specific order of tasks or discussions. I had originally felt that I should have some type of order of events to follow, but then I realized that I was more familiar with business meetings and structured events and was therefore experiencing some counter transference in my planning process. However, as I went through our readings and watched Yalom lead his groups I felt as if my process group should be just that, a process, a process of conversation and emotional expression. My goal …show more content…
I realized that if I were to have some type of structured plan, I would have lost some of the most profound thoughts, ideas, and feelings which were coming out of the group. While in the group, one thing I found to be the most difficult was finding a balance between being present for the individual group members and the group as a whole. I found myself attaching to a few key words from each of the group member and then I wanted to so badly try and go down a path to explore the words I found most interesting. I realized however, that in doing this I was pulling myself away from the group and trying to think of a way to incorporate the thoughts and feelings I had into a question for the group, which, looking back, would have only benefited me and satisfied my curiosity and not the group as a whole. After this realization, I decided I wanted to sit back more and let the group lead itself, and use silence provide a time for reflection and space for the group members to bring up their thoughts and feelings. Going into the group, I really wanted to try and apply horizontal and vertical disclosure, but there were times where I was so busy trying to make sure I was asking the right questions or paying attention to being present, I would miss the opportunity to expand of the individual’s