ABSTRACT
When applied to inner life, reality testing seeks to reach understanding, clarify distortions and the influence of past traumas, and prepare for appropriate behavior. Testing reality proceeds with the faith that anything that draws attention—feelings/thoughts/fantasies that people judge unrealistic, immature, immoral, or primitive—potentially has emotional truth value. This chapter describes three sequences of a day-long experiential group in a European city. In the first sequence, it offers reality testing for group negotiation; in the second, it discusses testing reality; and in the third, it addresses a member’s testing reality that had been assessed as a threat to both approaches to learning for the entire group. In reality testing, group process appears well-structured, coherent, and linear in that meaning gradually develops and is clarified. In testing reality, the group may appear to be thematically and even behaviorally disorganized.
