Encounter Groups was first published in 1977
First WorldWideWeb Electronic Internet Edition - Copyright © Colin Hamer 1999
Encounter Groups
Four Seasons Massage
The Personal Journal - Personal Guidance for Leaders & Others
Confidential Questionnaire
Appendices:
by Gore Vidal
(London: World Books, 1968)
Suffice it here to quote:
"Lately Peter round himself, to his disgust, using jargon words like 'relationship', picked up from Aeneas and his friends who, to a man, were addicted to the opulent vocabulary of psychiatry, a pseudo-science now in vogue, even more than phrenology had been during the previous century." (op.cit., p. 186.)Attention is also directed to pages 169, 190, 193, 209-10, 224-7, 262, 267, 273, 278 and 287.
Encounter groups have at least five purposes.
The living human body is probably the most readily available, certainly the most interesting, and also the most variable and adjustable of all the toys I can think of. Encounter groups can be seen at one level as play groups in which human beings play with each other. This activity and this experience is valuable, worthwhile, and self-justifying. It follows from this that encounter groups in some form or other have always existed, and will no doubt always continue to exist.
Encounter groups also provide an opportunity for us to explore alternative sorts of social interaction. They remove the need to use words to cloak our real feelings and to strengthen our inhibitions. They facilitate communication along non-verbal paths. We can lower our defence, allow our feelings and become more spontaneous and creative, more sensitive and aware, more open and responsive to others. From the standpoint of social psychology, therefore, encounter groups are valuable tools for investigating new forms or variations upon the existing forms of interpersonal behaviour.
Instead of focussing on the behaviour of the group to which the members belong, we can concentrate our attention on the subjective experiences and motivations of the individuals participating. Seen from this angle, encounter groups provide a valuable learning situation for the student of group-dynamics, and also a uniquely therapeutic setting for the resolution of individual conflicts and tensions.
The subjective turn in modern thought has resulted in a general distrust of theorising and the academic approach, and a rise in the popularity of existentialism, phenomenology and the do-it-yourself approach to life. This neo-primitive demand for incresed participation in all aspects of living has compelled industry to replace task-oriented forms of management by human relations exercises in administration. In therapy, too, people are refusing to look upon themselves just as the object of the therapeutic endeavours of doctors and therapists, are rejecting any suggestion that theirs is a purely passive rôle, and are insisting that they are the subjects of therapy, and fully paid-up members of the therapeutic team. Group therapy, therapeutic and psycho-therapeutic communities all acknowledge this development and take it into account.
Encounter groups are more often concerned with the growth towards superconsciousness and super-awareness of normal persons than with the cure and rehabilitation of sub-normal or socially ill-adapted persons. This difference is sometimes rather academic. To the extent, in any case, that encounter groups constitute a valid therapeutic instrument, they allow the subject of therapy full membership of the therapeutic team. In addition, they represent a shift in emphasis from the verbal interpretation of past experience to active, here-and-now participation in authentic group experience as this occurs in encounter itself.
This shift in emphasis is related to the fourth purpose of encounter which is, quite simply, to be. Encounter reacts against society's concern with goals, results, productivity, and, in general, doing something, and allows people the freedom to do nothing and to be themselves.
In encounter, therefore, we are concerned with experiencing ourselves as living in the here and now. For myself this has two meanings.
Principally, here and now is a Zen ideal, entry into Nirvana, living in eternity: the realization that the whole of the past and the future of objective time-measuring, the whole of the here and there of three-dimensional space, is existentially a non-differentiated part of the integral reality and being that is here and now. Being is. Non-being is not.
Secondly, derivatively and symbolically, here and now is a turned-on, LSD-like, mystical super-awareness of the manifold sensuous, intellectual and metaphysical dimensions held so richly and abundantly in less than a fraction of a second of really switched-on living.
It seems to me important to relate these two sorts of here-and-now awareness to each other and to daily life.
If I am living in a place that I don't like with persons I don't like doing a job I don't like and know that in just ten days' time I shall be interviewed for a new position that offers the prospect of living where I like, being with persons I love, and doing what I like doing, it may very well happen that from now till then I am almost oblivious of my here-and-now situation, and that my behaviour is routine and pretty well unconscious; all my attention is caught up in that tantalisingly problematic moment of a decisive interview still in the future. I have short-circuited time and space as we usually experience them, and am already living in that particular there and then, as if here and now were unreal. This is one extreme.
The mid-way position is occupied by our ordinary, run-of-the-mill, daily living, in which here and now is real, but the relevant definition of here and now is in terms of fairly large slices of the space-time continuum. Thus, I give my attention to the task of reading and understanding this account of encounter groups as I sit reading it, and the next item is, perhaps, a night out with a friend.
At the other extreme I find the experience of the LSD tripper. His here and now can be a fraction of a second, not even the meaning of a single sentence, but the slow, variegated expansions and contractions, curvings and flattenings, blowings and suckings, wettings and dryings of my lips as I shape out an explosive “p” or a harsh “k.” He can appreciate the all-embracing significance of my twitching ears or floating nostrils, the myriad shades of colour reflected on my face, the warm and familiar odours of my growing and decaying flesh.
I should like to incorporate at least a measure of this total awareness of the complex riches of the microscopic here and now into the practical process of living in this country today and tomorrow, and, besides, in extending such living into a sensitive and responsible self-involvement in total cosmic process.
I have mentioned four purposes of encounter so far - the adult play-pen, the feeling of togetherness, growth in self-understanding, and mystical communion. A fifth purpose comes into view if we consider that some persons organizing or taking part in encounter may be interested in black magic and witchcraft, however these social phenomena are to be interpreted. Such persons may, even unconsciously, use encounter groups for what I would regard as negative and undesirable purposes.
So much for the purposes of encounter. I want next to look at seven aspects of the encounter experience. These are bodily awareness, bodily relaxation, the acceptant attitude towards tension and discomfort, free imagination, eye contact, non-focussed attention, timelessness, and dramatic fantasy.
At the beginning of an encounter session I sometimes invite the participants not to talk, to remove their shoes, and to close their eyes. Each person has the opportunity of becoming aware of the feelings in his feet, legs, buttocks, genitals, stomach, back and spine, and so progressively aware of all the feelings throughout his body, whether he is tired, fresh, tense, relaxed, or surprised. He can be aware of his breathing, the sounds around him, odours, movements, temperatures, his stray thoughts about the past and the future, expectations in the present, any experienced needs and fears.
He is not asked to focus on anything of all this, nor, indeed, to concentrate on non focussing so that it, in turn, becomes a centre of attention. The notion is rather that of being himself, feeling himself, tuning in to himself in a non-focussed, free-floating way, without thinking deliberately, without feeling obliged to reach a judgment, without trying to remember the experience or to translate it into words. The principle is that he opens himself up and accepts responsibility for being himself, without seeking to evade into other people's situations, or to hide in some mere fragmentary corner of his being.
The exclusion of talking at the commencement of such an encounter session prevents the occurrence of that comedy of errors, and sometimes of that tragic misunderstanding, that comes from my interpreting your words in terms of my usage and from your interpreting my speech on the basis of your use of language. The exclusion of vision facilitates the avoiding of confusing associations from the encounter situation to other places and persons, and makes it, therefore, easier to stay with the here and now. Again, when the eyes are closed, the other senses are sometimes more awake. When there is no talking, it is easier to maintain contact with our bodily feelings. When we stand up in our bare feet, we really can feel where we stand and how we stand.
There are many other experiences which provide an opportunity for heightened bodily awareness.
I may gradually tense my body from the head progressively down into the toes until the whole body is tense, and then relax the body gradually from the toes upwards until the whole body is relaxed, staying attuned to my feelings throughout the whole experience.
I may take a shower fairly slowly with my eyes closed and in silence, either alone or in company, or simply wash my hands or my mouth slowly, or drink a glass of water deliberately.
Two can wash each other's feet, first with dampened warm salt, and then, after drying the skin, with olive oil. Or they may tap each other's heads and faces with the tips of their fingers, and then slap all the remaining areas of each other's bodies with the open palms of their hands, proceeding gently aft first, and then going to work quite vigorously, covering the whole body surface three times or more. For this and similar experiences the partners take it in turns to act first as donors, and then as receivers.
I have discussed twelve varieties of massage, which is relevant here, in my later presentation: Four Seasons Massage, so need not give space to it now.
Another help towards bodily awareness is to stretch and relax alternately all your face and body muscles. Or we can start from a position of rest and gradually bring the body into a state of total motion, becoming aware of ourselves as living movement. Another experience is that of raising one's arms a few times very slowly either forwards or sideways to shoulder height, and then to drop them very quickly to ones side. Again, we may life our shoulders up towards our ears very slowly, pause, and then, just as slowly, lower them, staying in contact with all our feelings throughout the experience.
Another experience is to stand still with feet together and eyes closed, hands relaxed by ones side, and to say ones otherwise motionless body in a pendulum-like motion backwards and forwards, to left and to right, slightly only at first and then increasingly, allowing the movement to take over and develop its own rhythm and gradually die down, like the moving of trees in a wind-blown forest. After this experience we might bend forwards and backwards from the waist to touch the ground, with knees pressed back and the head hanging loose, stay in the down position for a short while, breathing out, and then slowly unwind to an upright position once more.
There are still further possibilities, some of which are a little complicated. For example, you lie on your back, then slowly raise first your knees, then your hips and your buttocks, and finally your spine, but not your shoulders, away from the ground. Next you pause, then slowly lower yourself until you're lying flat once more. Then you gradually raise yourself again, this time proceeding only until half the spine is off the ground, then pause, then lower as before. Finally you raise yourself once more until your hips and buttocks are about an inch away from the ground, pause, then lower yourself very slowly, then relax.
Or, lying on your back, you can slowly raise your left knee up towards the ceiling, then in towards your chest, and then slowly unroll, keeping the spine stationary. Repeat this with the right knee, and then with both knees together. Relax afterwards.
There are bodily experiences, too, which, like most forms of massage and like the shared shower, call for partners working together. Thus, we may feel each other with eyes closed, exploring the hands first and then extending the contact to other areas. This direct, non-verbal exploration of our capacities for sensitive two-way communication, of our mutual boundaries to self-giving and to openness to another, of our particular amalgam of subjective involvement and objective detachment in interpersonal relations, and of our instinctive sensitive response of acceptance or rejection of proffered alternative patterns of social interaction is well worthwhile, and can, of course, be afterwards discussed and related to our behaviour in daily life.
Two partners may explore each other back to back. Or one of them may lie on his back, while the other very slowly raises his leg to the three-quarters position, and then lowers it, repeating the action with the other leg a little later. Or partners can have the experience of feeling, slapping, pushing, pulling, gripping and squeezing each other's hand. If this is done in a circle with several people, they can also try alternately to join and separate the others' hands they meet. It is a good idea to keep ones eyes closed throughout this experience, and then to repeat it with eyes open. People can also shake themselves up, or shake each other up. They can crawl under a large cloth and meet together, or, with eyes open, several persons can crawl slowly into a pile in the centre of the room and experience their changing feelings.
Some of these bodily awareness experiences are quite relaxing, several include some degree of deliberate focussing on relaxation as such, and a description of what I call the relaxation posture forms part of the introduction to massage in pairs in Four Seasons Massage.
In encounter groups, too, people sometimes lie down on their backs in a circle in the relaxation position, and concentrate on breathing out completely and feeling themselves, in imagination, dropping down towards the centre of the Earth, as they stay in contact with their changing bodily feelings. In a modification of this position the knees are slightly raised, the feet crossed, and the hands folded over the pit of the stomach. Relaxation in this position can be sustained for a considerable time.
In general it is easier to relax if any heavy clothing, glasses, watches, belts, and the like are removed, and there is a great deal to be said in favour of nude encounter groups. Nude group relaxation has a special quality of intimacy and warmth. Smoking, on the other hand, is very much discouraged in encounter, and we usually prefer participants to feel and live through their tensions rather than to dissipate them in smoking.
Another procedure to promote individual relaxation is called rocking. One person stands in the centre of a small circle with eyes closed, his body limp, and allows himself to fall this way and that. The others hold him, passing him round the circle from hand to hand, his feet meanwhile staying on the ground. When they feel he has sufficient trust in them, they pick him up bodily to shoulder height, face upwards, in a horizontal position, with his arms folded loosely over the pit of his stomach, one of them taking care to support his head lightly. They sway him backwards and forwards for some time with a rocking lullaby motion, possibly whispering a lullaby as they do so. Next, continuing with the rocking, in a smooth and even way they lower him gradually to the ground, maintaining physical contact with him there for a little while. In his own time, he opens his eyes. In cases of considerable tension, this procedure is a good way of working towards the beginning of a deep massage of the individual by several members of the group working together.
The discouragement of smoking illustrates the encounter principle of favouring an acceptant attitude towards tension and discomfort. In all encounter experiences in my groups, participants are invited to be aware of their tensions, but not to try to avoid or annul them. Instead, they are encouraged to go into them, to be more aware of them, to blend with them, to enjoy them. Perhaps I should say at once that this method can lead to a great release of tension, and does not lead to its increase. The idea is that each person should accept full responsibility for himself, and, therefore, for his own way of bodying in the here and now. If he feels a pain, if he is paining, he cannot be his full self unless he freely lives inside the pain. He is similarly encouraged to be aware of his pulse, his breathing, and so on. On the other hand, if the group leader notices a member sitting in an uncomfortable position with arms folded and legs crossed, he may invite him to unfold his arms and uncross his legs and experience the difference.
When people are lying relaxed either in their own space or in a circle it is often useful to move into some experiences in free or guided fantasy. Each can imagine he is in a meadow, an imaginary meadow, not one he has ever seen, or been in, or seen a picture of in reality. The idea in this and all that follows is to use the imagination to picture things that have never really been seen, to be spontaneous and creative. He looks around the meadow to see if the grass is abundant or sparse, long or short, fresh or withered. He notices anything else that is growing there, his own age in imagination, his surroundings and his own position in the meadow. He becomes aware of his feelings and sinks into the experience.
Next he may imagine he is climbing a mountain, really a mountain and not just a hill. He is aware of his own position on the mountain, and has an idea about whether or not he will make it to the summit, and whether there are other mountain-tops in the vicinity. He familiarises himself with his surroundings, finds out whether the mountain is stony, or covered with snow, or rich in vegetation. He knows the method he is using to ascend the mountain, how much equipment he has, and what he is wearing, and tunes in to his own feelings.
Then he imagines a stream. The water may be deep or shallow, clear or murky, slow or fast flowing, warm or cold. The stream may be wise or narrow, the currents even or uneven, the course of the stream straight or meandering. He knows what the river-bed is like and familiarises himself with the banks of the stream, noting his own age, position, behaviour, apparel, and feelings.
You find yourself next visiting a house you have never seen before. Be aware of how many rooms there are, and of how they are arranged. See if there is a basement and an attic. Have a good look at the furniture and other fittings in each room. How do you feel about the house?
Imagine next that somebody the same sex as yourself, a person you cannot see, is disclosing his first name to you. Be aware of what sort of character and personality this person has.
You are now back in the meadow where you were before. Look carefully, and you see a cow and a bull. You may not see them at first, but they are there all right. Be aware of them, and of what they are each doing. Notice your own position in the meadow and compare it with theirs. See if they are either of them taking any interest in you, or if you, in imagination, are paying any attention to them. Tune in to your own feelings. Are there any other animals in the meadow? How do you feel about them?
Imagine a rose bush next. Notice the colour of the roses. Are there any thorns? Are there many roses? Are they buds, or fully open? Fresh or withered? Is the growth of the bush luxuriant? Do you pick the roses? How do you feel?
You have been for a long walk in the countryside. It is getting late and is already rather dark. You have not yet reached the town. A car approaches you from somewhere behind. The driver offers you a lift home. Be aware of the driver's age and appearance. Do you accept the lift? How do you feel?
Imagine next a stagnant pool in the middle of some shaded woods. You are looking into the pool. You may see nothing at first. As you look carefully into the pool a living creature begins to emerge from the stagnant waters. Be aware of it. Notice its appearance. Experience your own feelings.
And now you are hidden behind a tree near a cave. You can see anything or anyone that comes out of the cave, but you cannot be seen yourself. You are quite safe. Look for a while and see who or what comes out of the cave. If you look for a little longer, quite a variety of beings may emerge.
And now you can see a volcano. It is beginning to erupt. Be aware of how slight or how violent the eruption is. See what sort of consequences the eruption of the volcano is likely to have in the neighbourhood. Notice your own position. Are you very close to the volcano, or far away? Where are you? Where exactly is the volcano? Stay in contact with your feelings. Breathe out deeply, let your breath come in by itself, breathe as deeply and as evenly as you can. Keep your eyes closed. Be relaxed.
I expressed the last few phases of the guided fantasy as if I were speaking to you directly at this moment here and now, the better to communicate their spirit. The members of the group are next invited to imagine themselves somewhere near a road through the forest. Each of them knows he cannot be seen from the road, and that he is in no danger. Nothing can happen to him. However, somewhere on the road he sees an enemy of his, someone he dislikes very much, or someone who did him an injury at some time in the past. As he looks on, he becomes aware that a lion is approaching this person. He is aware of all that happens, but can do nothing to alter the course of events. He cannot speak or call out or move away from his place of safety. He is aware of whatever takes place, and aware, too, of his own feelings.
Next he returns to the house where he was before, goes down into the basement, or else digs a hole down into the foundations. He may find a variety of things. One thing he comes across is an old picture book. It is dusty, perhaps, but he cleans it up a bit. He turns over some of the pages and takes a look at some of the pictures. He is aware of what is going on, and of his own feelings.
When he is ready, he slowly opens his eyes, stands up and moves into the next experience, or else all members of the group may share and discuss their fantasy experience.
In a less elaborate form of guided fantasy, each one imagines he is in a meadow. From there he goes through a field, passing on his left an old woman at work, and also a farm-building, with some sort of cup on a ledge outside. Beyond this he passes into some woods, by a stagnant pool complete with living creature, and on, over an unexpected wall blocking his path, into the heart of the forest, passing a dated tree on his right. Emerging from the forest, he is given something by a man working in the fields, climbs a mountain, goes into the antechamber of a cave, where he sees a sword on the wall, and on, by some ruse or other, past the hostile guardian into an inner room, where he finds an old sage, seated, to whom he is allowed to address one single question. Coming out of the cave, he goes down the other side of the mountain, noticing the view before him, and, passing a rose bush, comes back into the meadow from which he had started out on his journey.
Alternatively, when all the members of the group are relaxed, they construct not a connected narrative but a shared fantasy. One of them, for instance, may say he can see a door, and they all visualise a door. The person next to him may then say he sees a tree outside the open door, and they all visualise their door as open with a tree beside it. The fantasy continues, with each one speaking in his turn, for so long as interest holds, some possibly dropping out earlier than others. Provided the members say what they spontaneously imagine, and do not try to build up some sort of connected story, this free collective fantasy can release many feelings.
Eye contact is also an important feature within the encounter experience. Partners may sit facing each other motionless for some minutes, looking into each other's eyes, allowing themselves to flow into the other person and the other person to flow into them.
Alternatively they may look into each other's eyes while mirror-dancing, following each other's every movement, with first one and then the other leading and holding the initiative.
Again, facing each other and holding each other's gaze, they may either wrist-wrestle on the floor, or from an upright position express alternately first affection and then aggression using one finger only, then a hand, then two hands, then two arms and the right side of the body, and then their whole person. For wrist-wrestling the partners lie down on their stomachs facing each other, their faces fairly close together. Each takes the partner's right hand in his own right hand, so that, as their elbows rest firmly on the ground, and their arms are bent, the two right hands meet palm to palm, and then come to grip each other. The left hand is placed as a support on the ground outside the partner's right elbow. Both breathe deeply and look into each other's eyes. They see which of them can be the first to push the partner's right hand outwards through an arc of ninety degrees so that it comes to rest on the floor near the left side of their own head. They try as hard as they can, and do not give way easily, but do not squeeze nor twist the partner's hand. While using all the force they have, they only push, and the elbows have to remain on the ground. They do not speak, but as they breathe out, they may make a growling noise. The experience can be repeated with the left hand.
Another ingredient of the encounter experience I feel to be important is non-focussed attention. This is an element in some bodily awareness procedures, and justifies the saying that sensory awakening is de-hypnosis. It reflects the view that the Zen answer to Socrates's “Know yourself!” is: “No yourself.”
A meal can be shared in silence, or one may meditate in this spirit whilst eating an orange. Another idea is the sense walk, in which you walk slowly about in bare feet, your eyes seeing all but looking at nothing, your ears hearing all but listening to nothing, with you open to all sense impressions, all physical feelings, all ideas, all desires and impulses, and yet not focussed on nor attending to anything in particular. The achievement of this condition is sometimes referred to as turning-on without drugs.
A variation on the same them is to have your eyes closed for the walk, and to allow yourself to be guided by a partner through the experience, which then has the added dimension of an exploration in reciprocal sensitivity and mutual trust.
Yet another possibility is for all the members of the group to start from a position of sitting or lying on the ground with closed eyes, to keep their eyes closed throughout the experience, to begin with some response to the invitation to explore the space around them, and to go on from there in a non-focussed frame of mind, allowing everything to flow.
The state of non-focussed attention can easily lead into what I call timelessness, the awareness of the here and now not as a specific present related backwards towards a determinate past and forwards into a proximate future, but rather as a here-and-now awareness in which everything that is, is here, and is now, and is awareness, so that the subject-object dichotomy of Cartesian consciousness is transcended, there is no more male and female but we are all one person, and conscious ego-boundaries fall away.
So long as I am holding fast to the ego-boundaries of my private individual character I am likely to be the victim of denial, splittling, displacement, scotomatization, replacement, projection, introjection, rationalization, repression, regression, identification, mystification and reversal. But once I achieve timelessness there is some chance that I may be really ready to learn, willing to transform my mentality and not merely to broaden my ideas, prepared to admit my deficiencies and to open myself to fresh lights, instead of pinning my trip onto other people or trying to live parasitically on the basis of other people's experience. There is some chance that I will come clean, remember the various things that I have forgotten, grow up even if it is painful, and accept responsibility for myself instead of scape-goating others. I will have clarity instead of confusion.
There is sometimes an advantage in an encounter group in the members giving each other new names, and not knowing one another's public names, and also in the practice, towards the close of an on-going series of encounter meetings, of each member bringing along something to destroy and something to give away. It is also useful for members to say openly what they resent about each other, what they appreciate, and what demands they wish to make of each other.
This is the place to emphasize that in encounter I see a certain creative discontinuity between myself as leader or facilitator and each and every other member of the group. I don't believe in intruding into other people's privacy. I'm on my own trip, and want others to enjoy theirs. I'm not interested in guessing what their behaviour means, nor in teasing out in terms of my own mental categories the idea content of what they say to me in their own private language to comment upon or try to express their experience. I aim instead to let my feelings flow and to relax into as full and non-focussed a mood of self-presence as possible.
I approve of Fritz Perl's encounter prayer: “I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.”
I also experience creative discontinuity between my past and my here and now self-involving commitment to the actuality of my present situation. In the past up until now I have learned a lot about me, but “me” is not living; “I” am living. In other words, here and now only here and now is real. I wish to relate simply as a person to my situation, just to be, to let it flow. I believe that in proportion as I achieve this, by not-trying in the right way, my subliminal awareness of the various relevant parameters of my situation will lead memory to throw up appropriate items from the past and intellect to put on file anything valuable for my future.
I allow further for a creative discontinuity between the various aspects of each individual's personality and behaviour. He may have presented himself within the group as a heartless, walking, tape-recorder-like creature reeling off verbal interpretations of whatever is going on in an abstract and stereotyped way as a defence against and as an escape from any involvement in the emotional reality of group life. This will make me all the more ready to believe in the goodness of his feelings when they do peep through or break out. I wish to meet feeling with feeling, reason with reason, and not to confuse the two nor fruitlessly discuss their relative merits.
I believe the fidelity of encounter to the principle of discontinuity is one of its most obvious advantages. As long as development is associated with the continuing expansion of certain trends, innovations will tend to have only marginal significance. Discontinuous movement facilitates progress, and I am glad that encounter provides for a total change of Gestalt. We are most of us familiar by now with the contrast between literal and oral cultures. In the literal cultures attitudes are private, individualistic, specialist, detached, exclusive, linear, sharply defined, successive and categorizing, so that, for instance, the regular sessions of individual psycho-analysis may make sense in such a context. In oral cultures, however, attitudes are communal, collective, participant, involved, inclusive, amorphous, tactile, with points of views blending together into undifferentiated sense experience, general cosmic consciousness, and living and feeling at various levels of involvement. This change in the social matrix of therapy has made encounter a necessity within current practice, and has also swept away the alleged distinction between therapy and ordinary living, and between mental-sickness and mental-health.
Having spoken about bodily awareness, tension and relaxation, about eye-contact, free imagination, non-focussed attention and timelessness, I come next to dramatic fantasy. This is a deeply significant aspect of encounter.
One simple approach with a group of twelve members is to give each person a card with a pen-portrait on it from among the following:
They are then invited to interact non-verbally as a group, each one acting only in conformity with what is written on the card assigned to him. After some time (minutes, hours, days, weeks) has elapsed, they can exchange cards. The ideal is for each one eventually to experience himself in each of the twelve rôles. Afterwards they discuss the experience with each other.
Another good opening is for each one to imagine an object in considerable detail, to feel, as it were, its shape, colour, texture, temperature, value, energy, and so on. He is then invited to feel interiorly and intensely that he is himself this object, to be tense where it would be tense, relaxed where it would be relaxed, and so forth. After this he can be asked physically to be and act as if he were this object. All the members of the group do this together. At a certain point, the leader asks them all to stop suddenly, and to begin to be and do the exact opposite.
Following on from this, one group member may sit on a cushion in the centre of the circle, speaking as if he were his “object” speaking to his “opposite.” Then, he moves to another cushion and plays the part of his “opposite” speaking to the “object.” It is important to speak in each case in the first and second persons, and to keep to the present tense. He moves back and forth between the two cushions, developing a dialogue in this way. The others folow the whole sequence, and may comment afterwards, or, if their feelings so incline them, break in on his dialogue, one of them possibly sustaining the rôle of either the “object” or the “opposite,” if he feels that rôle is being inadequately dramatized. If a group member can arrive at a rapprochement or at a dissolution of the conflict between his “object” and his “opposite,” this is usually a good thing.
Similarly dramatic dialogues can be initiated between group members in conflict or mutual estrangement, between a group member and a relative or acquaintance only imagined to be present, between the different characters, including the non-human characters and material objects, in a member's real or artificial dream.
Work of this kind activates group empathy and brings out a lot of projection and identification which can be then worked through.
It often becomes clear that someone has a lot of undischarged feelings of grief, fear, anger, embarrassemnt, boredom or sheer physical pain bottled up inside. The natural discharge for grief is tears; for fear, cold perspiration, bodily streaming and shaking; for anger, flushing and a hot sweat; for embarrassment, laughter; for boredom, non-repetitive behaviour and talk; for physical pain, yawning, scratching and stretching.
If the progress of a dramatic dialogue makes it apparent that a member's feelings need discharging, either he, or sometimes the whole group, may be encouraged to laugh, to yawn, to stretch, to cry, to shout and to scream, to hit a pillow representing someone they dislike, to wring a towel very vigorously while growling and roaring, to beat the air, or to have a vigorous fight with someone, pushing against each other, pressing each other down to the ground, and so on. Sometimes one member is invited to lie down on the floor. All the others co-operate in holding him down, and he is asked to summon up all his resources to release himself. Alternatively, he may be asked either to break into or break out of a compact circle fromed of the other members of the group, and who are trying to obstruct him. The choice of exercise depends on whether his problem is that of being emotionally hemmed in, excluded, or unable to express himself.
Sometimes, after a dramatic dialogue that has not quite come off, the protagonists may be asked to repeat the dialogue, but to reverse rôles and see what difference it makes. Again, two others may take their place and re-run the dialogue as they feel it should have gone.
An alternative way of dealing with tension between two group members is to invite them to stand at opposite ends of the room, to look at each other, to approach each other slowly, and then to relate to each other non-verbally in whatever way they feel to be appropriate, and to take it from there.
Incidentally, it is often useful to adopt another person's posture so as to get the feel of it from the inside. When, for instance, the balance of men and women participating seems appropriate, and if sufficient time is available to enter into this experience, after each person has placed a complete set of his or her personal clothing in a convenient location, all quietly close their eyes with an inner circle of outwards-facing women and an outer circle of inwards-facing men each moving clockwise to music, stopping when the music stops, then, keeping their eyes closed, imagining themselves as being no longer themselves but the partner now facing them. After the facilitator has made any necessary adjustments to avoid pygmies being partnered with giants, all open their eyes, and, still in silence, dedicate a few moments more to imagining themselves as whoever their “opposite” is. Each then puts on his or her partner's clothes, and during the next meal, hour, day or week behaves, speaks, thinks and feels, so far as is feasible, as if he or she actually were that other person…
Falling backwards into each other's arms is a nice expression of mutual trust I should like to mention here. I also believe two people can learn a lot my meeting each other at a fixed time every day for a fortnight, irrespective of any change in their feelings towards each other. Humming the first tune that comes into your head may tell you something about yourself you had not realised before, and writing down your first name very, very slowly may give you a few surprises.
Sometimes at the end of a particular encounter meeting it is a good idea for everyone to form a single circle, to move closer and closer together, and then, as one body, to sway gently back and forth for some time. After this they relate non-dverbally to each of the other members individually, and after that may talk and have tea or coffee before departing.
I have mentioned some of the things that happen typically in an encounter meeting, and used the expression “encounter leader or facilitator.” It is well to emphasise that the leader, guide, or facilitator does not control the group. Each person in encounter is responsible for himself, for what he does and does not do, for what he says and refrains from saying, for what he allows and does not allow to happen to him, for his own participation or non-participation in group experiences. The leader makes this clear from the start, and it is most important. If afterwards, for brevity and convenience, he or other members of the group speak in a way that suggests someone is not free to do his own thing, this implication is not intended, and, if necessary, this point should be clarified again. Of course, the leader may freely choose to regard himself as responsible not only for himself and to the group but also, within limits, for the behaviour of the members at a certain stage, or for a particular member most of the time, or for another member in a special set of circumstances. None of this, however, diminishes the individual's responsibility for and to himself; it is only complementary to it.
With the exception of the leader, and then only at the beginning of a session, it is a principle of encounter not to ask question. The reason for this is that, when I ask a question, I evade the responsibility attached to making a frank statement of my own position, and pass the buck to someone else. Obviously, any member of a group may choose to assign to himself the rôle of leader from time to time, and he may ask a question in that spirit. However, the idea in encounter, when we do speak, is to use first person singular statements in the present tense indicative of our own feelings as they happen, and to avoid questions, interpretations, flight into the past, speculation about the future, or such words as “we,” “one,” “everybody,” “people,” and so on. It is, of course, quite in order to say: “I want to know how you feel,” provided it is clearly understood that this is not a request for information, but rather a description of a wish, without any implication that anyone is going to feel like satisfying that wish. He may or he may not.
Once an encounter group gets under way it is, on the whole, self-directing. The leader's task is to clarify issues, not by interpretation in terms of pairing, dependency and fight-flight, but by his mode of being and acting within the group, which, depending onhis experience and sensitivity, will be attuned to and will mirror the dominant features of the particular Gestalt that is, for the time being, the form of the dynamic process that is the group's life.
In an encounter group, as in any other, individual behaviours are linked associatively and refer to a common underlying concern about the here-and-now situation, in as much as it is expressive of one of the focal conflicts in the gradual development of the great themes of human community, and so activates an anxiety which meets with either a restrictive or an enabling solution.
When the group meets for the first time, the leader will tend to rely on this and other similar anticipations about encounter. He may make use of one or two almost routine procedures to set things in motion, or, knowing that they are in motion already, he may allow them to take their own course. Some leaders like to begin with each member stating his name, feelings, expectations and objectives. Other leaders prefer a non-verbal introduction. Each has his own trip.
Because I believe in growth from the inside of each individual and group, I do not myself feel that positive change can be accelerated beyond certain limits, though I realise negative obstacles can be removed rather quickly with advantage. I like touching and being touched, am fond of nudity, and prefer to emphasize the non-verbal aspects of encounter to counter-balance my tendency to talk a lot myself. Beyond this, I am interested in the contributions of Zen buddhism, bio-energetic massage, the Tarot, hypnotic suggestion, dream-power, clay modelling and painting, the function of music and dance, country walks, the scent of wild flowers, macrobiotic food, colour tests, yoga, witchcraft, occultism in general, the whole field of psychology, philosophy and religion. Above all, I like people.
Some encounter leaders place a great emphasis on cathartic work-throughs in which deep-seated fear, anger, or grief finds explosive and sometimes physically violent expression. This may be in the context of group fantasy, or dramatic fantasy, or a particular encounter between two group members. It often involves physical restraint and a breaking loose from it, cushion beating, screaming, and the like. These work-throughs easily give an impression that some great result has been reached, and everybody may be quite pleased about them at the time.
I feel sure they can do a lot of good, but often have a hunch that the change to which they give rise is very superficial and short-lived, and that deeper changes can be made just as rapidly if a less explosive approach is used. I do not think an encounter leader is at his best when he has hang-ups about aggression. My own feeling is that superficial aggression should be allowed some sort of expression near the beginning of a meeting, so that it can be got out of the way, and then the group can work more happily afterwards. I am not interested in forcing to the surface aggression that a person is not yet ready to handle creatively.
The conducting or orchestration of an encounter group by its leader (and there is always someone leading the so-called leaderless group) is something very subtle and hard to define. I cannot give any pat answer to the question as to what to do first or which order to follow even in an introductory encounter meeting. On the whole, I like to begin rather quietly, to encourage some dropping of barriers and masks, and to encourage some relaxation of tension right from the start, to provide for the subsequent display of exuberant and possibly hostile behaviour, and then to move into some fantasy work, concluding with either individual work-throughs, or experiences such as massage which allow warm and positive feelings to be suffused throughout the group.
I wish next to describe a particular form of meeting between two persons, a sort of co-counselling if you like, which has nothing to do with encounter groups themselves, but which can very advantageously be engaged in by persons who have the sort of trust in each other that encounter meetings favour.
The Guru game is my version of a strategy based on the twenty-two cards of the major arcana of the Tarot. The disciple sits upright with his hands on his thighs, quite motionless, his head straight, and his eyes gazing straight out into space along the eye-level of the Guru, into, through and beyond the Guru's gaze. The disciple is instructed to see all and to look at nothing, to hear all and to listen to nothing, to feel and smell all and to attend to nothing, to breathe out, to be aware of his own feelings and tensions, to relax completely, not to move or seek to avoid any tension or discomfort he begins to feel, but rather to sink into all his feelings whether pleasant or unpleasant, to direct his awareness into them and, equally, into his total environment, to enjoy his feelings, blend with them, submerge himself in them.
The Guru also sits upright facing the disciple, looking all the time into his eyes, and noticing any movements in his face and throat, while himself preserving a look of impassivity and speaking in a neutral voice.
The idea is that for some ninety minutes the Guru asks a question repeatedly and repeatedly of the disciple, who each time replies at once in a few words in accordance with whatever spontaneously comes into his head. The Guru makes no comment, but the disciple himself reflects upon his experience a few hours later, and draws whatever conclusions he likes.
There are twenty-two questions, and the best plan is to ask one question each day for ninety minutes on twenty-two consecutive days. The repetition of the same question, the intensity of twenty-two sessions in close proximity to each other, and the insistence that not even one free day should be allowed to break the continuity of the series, has some of the impact of the Zen koan, or, if the analogy is not too unpleasant, of the Chinese water torture.
Here are the questions:
The Guru game is one way of “turning-on” without drugs.
- Shalom & Welcome! - 
© The Neith Network Library 2005
Webmaster: H.B. ExtraReverendDoctorColinJames Hamer, The Rainbow Programme
Creativity House, 9 Oxford Street, St. Thomas, EXETER, Devon EX2 9AG, U.K.
Updated 10:32 25/1/2005.