ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines principles and practices of group work that emerge from a clearer understanding of how groups learn, a set of principles and practices derived from the transactional analysis, group-as-a-whole, and natural family systems traditions and applicable whether we are the group’s designated leader, an engaged group member, or a consultant to the group’s leadership/followership. The author specifies the hypotheses that now guide his efforts toward detecting and facilitating learning in groups. Group leadership and followership are delineated as reciprocal processes that manifest differently in relation to tasks, anxieties, and learning. The author discusses the facilitative practices of defining a self-in-system, of learning continually and experientially, of holding space for everyone to speak and think freely for self, of listening to the bodily effect of the conversation’s content, and of sharing hypotheses while researching further—all of which work in concurrent synergy.
