ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview, a taste of the complexity and variety of middles. It discusses the early-middle phase of a group of adult children of engaged in a very tentative exploration and the middle-middle phase of a group of diabetic youngsters reaching for autonomy despite their physical illness. The chapter presents end-middle phase of a group of foster adolescent girls confronting negative self-images associated with loss and rejection. In the beginning of the middle phase, group members move from a cautious, evaluative position to one that allows for more confrontational, competitive, and intimate behavior. The way in which Mr. Barry used his authority could only be accomplished in the middle phase when sufficient cohesion was established to tolerate the intensity in such confrontation. In this period, group members slowly establish comfortable roles for themselves in the group, roles that are safe because they are a part of the member's historical baggage.
