Transition Stage: Characteristics

1. Transition Stage: Characteristics • Anxiety • Within individuals • Within group itself

2. Transition Stage: Characteristics (cont.) • Defensiveness and resistance • Resistance: behavior that keeps one or others from exploring personal problems or painful feelings; inevitable • Fear of making a fool of oneself • Fear of rejection or of emptiness • Fear of losing control • Fear of self disclosure

3. Transition Stage: Characteristics (cont.) • Struggle for control • Competition and rivalry • Challenge the leader • Ignore here-and-now problem; leads to hidden agenda

4. Transition Stage: Characteristics (cont.) • Conflict • Conflict is inevitable • Avoidance makes it destructive • Cohesion increases after conflict is recognized / expressed

5. Transition Stage: Characteristics (cont.) • Confrontation • Form of corrective feedback: how affected by others • Timing and cultural sensitivity important • More cohesive group • Challenges to group leader • Mutual responsibility for productive group • Respond openly and avoid becoming defensive

6. Transition Stage: Characteristics (cont.) • Leaders of reaction to resistance • Model direct style • Deal with own feelings • Expose your reactions • Emphasis on behaviors not labels

7. Transition Stage: Problem Behaviors • Silence and lack of participation • Monopolostic behavior • Story telling • Questioning • Giving advice • Band-aiding • Hostile behavior

8. Transition Stage: Problem Behaviors (cont.) • Dependency • Acting superior • Socializing • Intellectualizing • Emotionalizing

9. Transition Stage Summary: Stage Characteristics • Members concerned about what they will think of themselves if they increase their self-awareness • Members concerned about others’ acceptance or rejection of them • Members test the leader and other members to determine how safe the environment is

10. Transition Stage Summary: Stage Characteristics (cont.) • Members struggle between playing it safe and risking getting involved • Members experience some struggle for control and power and some conflict with other members or the leader • Members observe the leader to determine trustworthiness

11. Transition Stage Summary: Stage Characteristics (cont.) • Members learning how to express themselves so that others will listen to them

12. Transition Stage Summary: Member Functions & Tasks • Recognize and express negative feelings • Respecting one’s own resistances but working with them • Moving from dependence to independence • Learning how to confront others constructively

13. Transition Stage Summary: Member Functions (cont.) • Being willing to face / deal with reactions toward what is occurring in the group • Willing to work through conflicts; not avoid

14. Transition Stage Summary: Member Possible Problems • Categorized according to “problem types” or may limit themselves with self-imposed label • Refuse to express persistent negative feelings, contributing to climate of distrust

15. Transition Stage Summary: Member Possible Problems (cont.) • If confrontations are poorly handled, members may retreat into defensive postures and issues will remain hidden • Form subgroups and cliques, expressing negative reactions outside the group but remaining silent in the group

16. Transition Stage Summary: Leader Functions & Tasks • Teaching members value of recognizing and dealing with conflict situations • Assisting members to recognize their own patterns of defensiveness • Teaching members to respect resistance and work constructively with many forms it takes

17. Transition Stage Summary: Leader Functions (cont.) • Providing a model for members by dealing directly and tactfully with any challenges, either personal or professional • Avoiding labeling members but learning how to understand certain problem behaviors

18. Transition Stage Summary: Leader Functions (cont.) • Assisting members to become autonomous and independent • Encouraging members to express reactions that pertain to here-and-now happenings in the sessions