ABSTRACT
Managed care, increasing caseloads, waiting lists, and so-called efficiency-based approaches to the use of time are creating large groups in a number of settings today. What constitutes a very large group? There is no absolute definition. The professional literature generally conceptualizes small-group practice as working with a membership of three to ten, with some preference for a core group that is large enough to prevent ongoing dyad work by default if a member or two are not present (as in a core of five or six members)
and yet small enough for every member’s voice to be heard on a regular basis. Although there are no set parameters, then, the very large group has been loosely conceptualized for this discussion as large enough to divide into at least three or four (but perhaps even more) small working groups, such as a total membership of about twenty or more (as is often the case in residential floor meetings or multifamily groups or social-action groups). Depending on setting, group purpose, characteristics of members, and other variables, such as overall group lifeline and how well members already know one another, one group of fifteen may share many of the time and place issues of the very large group as described in the following discussion, of course, and another less so.
