ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a technique of group training in which the particular goal was to assist institutional personnel to become receptive to new ideas. If this was successful, it was thought that they would be able to acquire meaningful knowledge by more traditional teaching techniques. If an institution is to change its methods of functioning, one important determinant of this is adequate staff training. Institutional staff who are in the process of being trained to become more effective have to be prepared to give up certain present satisfactions and face a degree of anxiety in attempting new patterns of behaviour in relationship to their charges. In all institutions for young people, but particularly in the penal system, the relationship between sociological systems stresses and the behaviour of the inmates is often marked. In one the group is used as a “human laboratory” to assist its members to become more sensitive to intrapersonal processes and their effects on human beings.
