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Introspective Group Work
How can an introspective group work give tools for everyday life to face practical problems, such as personal relationship, family, or work issues?
We are very well aware of the malaise that often affects all of us. We may not know how to define or explain it, but none of us can ignore the driving force that leads us to look for someone or something that makes it vanish or attenuate.
Maybe you can’t even understand what is happening within yourselves. But you could wish to get out of the inner chaos..
Why join an inner research group?
In such a state of despair and restlessness, you can find absurd to join a group, to treat problems, and to look together for answers to inner questions. You can find difficult to realize how such an experience might be helpful.
This is the FIRST HURDLE that we cross when we set out on an inner research path and we follow it in a group.
We should accept this hurdle because made by inner resistances, such as the fears that emerge in showing hidden parts of our personality (e.g. moods, shyness, reluctance to open up to others).
What is the purpose of processing experiences?
Another hurdle is the today’s widespread trend to seek solutions that are superficial, sometimes only temporary but, what is important, rapid and immediate.
We are told that only through shortcuts we can reach our goal. They fascinate and attract us, and we go on this way, even if the results are unsatisfactory.
Thinking of participating in a group work, where you can bring your own experience, among strangers, without then receiving real and immediate solutions … what will it be useful for?
Is it an unnecessary waste of time?
Someone could find it better to resort to some kind of external solution, less tiring and above all quick and painless.
How do we gain self-knowledge?
Is it better to look for someone who tells us how to solve a problem, than to get a knowledge of how to reach an autonomous management of our lives?
The first would be a reductive and misleading interpretation of what we mean as group work.
And the following text will show how group work can be effective to gain self-knowledge. With it, we also achieve a greater equilibrium in living relationships with others. Group work has therefore become the subject of research, and many discussions have clarified and deepened its potential and effectiveness.
On another page, I will mention some studies on this topic and explain the introspective perspective of the groups I lead.
Antonella Giannini
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