Groupwork, as I practice it, includes not only the best of individual session work, but also abundant opportunities for healing and awakening made possible in a safe-to-go-really-deep interactive environment. And what are these opportunities? Consider a “typical” morning of groupwork...

After a greeting from me, participants (sitting in a circle on the floor) take turns introducing themselves, saying, among other things, a bit about what they’re having trouble dealing with and what they’re hoping to get from being in the group. Inevitably, several get quite emotional doing so. When everyone has had their turn, I begin working with one person (who usually steps forward with little or no invitation from me).

For anywhere from one to three or so minutes, I gather relevant information from that one, zeroing in on what’s troubling or challenging him or her, and then begin deepening the work, through whatever fits at the moment, be it Gestalt, psychodrama, conscious movement, guided meditation, or, more often than not, bodywork combined with psychotherapeutic direction. This usually brings about considerable energetic and emotional release, along with fitting insights. The work may finish with the person, considerably more open, returning to their place in the circle, or perhaps facing the group and deepening their contact with everyone, or mining their work for further insights into their life. I may then discuss what’s just happened, emphasizing that each person’s work is, in a very real sense, everyone’s work, encouraging everyone to let themselves fully feel each person’s work, and to suppress what they're feeling while another is working.

Often the next person who comes forward to work has been deeply stirred by the first person’s work and opening. By the time I’ve worked with the second participant, the whole group has come together, providing an ever-deepening environment for deep healing and awakening. When a piece of work is particularly moving, obviously affecting most in the group, I’ll sometimes have them gather around the person who’s just worked (who may be lying down on a mat), close their eyes, and stay there for a while, during which time I may play some fitting music, or Diane (my wife) may sing.

After that’s done, I may work with a third participant, or maybe with two participants (perhaps a couple, or two others with a similar issue), or have some group discussion. Things are wide open now. The group has become a sanctuary for very deep work, without trying to be so. There’s plenty of rage, tears, passion, and laughter. There’s tacit permission for everyone to be in as much pain as they actually are. I’m often amazed at this point to look at the clock and see that only an hour has gone by. More work follows: Someone exposes and works with a difficult relationship they’ve had or are in, and as they do so, others who’ve been in or are in a similar bind gain insight and inspiration for working with that bind; someone else works with a feeling of isolation they keep having, exploring its roots and cutting through their isolation, and as they do so, everyone else feels more connected; someone else who feels powerless does deep work regarding this, eventually contacting a place of such power in themselves that everyone cannot help but celebrate with them; and so on.

In such groupwork, one person’s work can catalyze others’ work to a depth very difficult to otherwise access. The sharing of such work, level upon level, in an environment of intimate safety and trust is as liberating as it is practical, as heart-opening as it is empowering, as integration-promoting as it is clarifying. Initially, the opportunity to self-disclose is sometimes shyly or reluctantly approached, but after a short while, opening thus becomes not a burden, but an ease, a liberating exposure; opening up thus does not necessarily mean having no boundaries, but in fact often is about opening to the need for clearer, stronger boundaries.

When we can be open about being closed, compassionately present with our resistance to our work, we are not so far from being what we are seeking; when one person in a group does this, all usually feel a deepening inner permission to do the same, shedding “shoulds” and tuning in to what really matters. This is not to uncritically praise groupwork (for it has its own pathological possibilities, such as the overriding of individual needs by group needs), but to highlight the very real benefits that it can abundantly supply.

I encourage everyone to share their intuitions at various points during a participant’s work. Toward the end of the morning session, I usually have participants sit in pairs, and lead them through improvised dyadic exercises (like completing incomplete sentences while maintaining eye contact with each other). We almost always finish with a group circle, during which I’ll teach a little meditation, and then have everyone let their voices flow out as I put something suitable on the stereo. Ten or so minutes later, and the morning session is over...