Early participation in a counselor-led student group opened a channel to self-communication and launched decades of engagement in group-based practices. Those practices included men's groups, community-building and communication workshops, personal-development seminars, couples retreats, support groups, theater-improv classes, and authentic-relating groups. Guided processes and willingness to take emotional risks allow participants to access genuine depth, closeness, and safety with strangers quickly. Groups of strangers can cohere into loving, supportive communities over short timeframes. Rapid intimacy relies on structured facilitation and vulnerable engagement rather than superficial disclosure.
But it was in the principal's office that I met the school counselor who changed my life-because among her various interventions on my behalf, she invited me to join a weekly "rap group" made up of fellow students who met in her office, under her direction, to talk about our lives and study our own behavior. It was an invitation I jumped at because I knew a lifeline when I was being thrown one.
Being in that group not only helped me open up a channel of communication with myself, but kicked off a lifelong involvement in groups designed to immerse me-educate me-in the how-to of self-reflection and communication. Over the past 50+ years, these have included men's groups, community-building and communication workshops, personal development seminars, couples retreats, support groups, theater improv classes, and "authentic-relating" groups.
Collection
[
|
...
]