ABSTRACT
The shift from private therapy to large-group meetings calls for a departure from the familiarly unstructured format. The design of the meetings taps into the stories, which are responses to the vital human interests represented in the themes. While there are many possible designs for these meetings, the example presents a five-step sequence, namely: subgroup demonstration, observations, subgroups, report to the plenary group and consolidation of theme. This chapter illustrates this process by describing a session conducted at a psychotherapy conference, where there were approximately one hundred people in the group. It describes five other possible design components: individual therapy in the presence of the group, films, practice, music and life orientation. Underlying whatever design specifics are created, there are two fundamental constants that will support the variety of possible designs. One is the goal of transforming important themes from an abstraction into a concrete complex of events. The other constant is the stimulation created by the communal ethos.
