ABSTRACT
By now it is no news that groups are better suited to accomplishing some “ people-changing” objectives than is individual work. Groups provide their members with a community of peers, whose experience and understanding echo the vicissitudes and wisdom of one’s own life. Groups provide a safe harbor for exploring essential life issues, and one’s mere presence in a group confronts one with life’s perennial choices: when to join and when to withdraw, when to fight and when to flee, and when and how to love (Glidewell, 1970). The multiplicity of relationships and points of view allows
for consensual validation and reality testing-both antidotes to what Sullivan calls the “ parataxic distortions” of human interaction. Jourard makes the case that mental health requires self-disclosure and that it is in groups that people can best pratice and bear witness to the human need to “ come out” as who they truly are. And Gestalt groups uniquely provide more latitude for experimentation and liveliness in the present, thus marshalling the group’s resources for increased creativity in the service of human development.
