musings...

Into The Void

Jun 19, 2011

Just back from the American Academy of Psychotherapists’ Summer Workshop the theme of which was “Into The Void,” I’m invigorated and enlivened by having spent four days intensively interacting with my colleagues and challenging myself to stretch for ever greater levels of openness.

One of the ways I stepped into the void was to co-lead  a two-day process group with a friend with whom I had not worked before.  In preparation, we had met biweekly by Skype for the year leading up to the workshop, planning its design and deepening and expanding our knowledge of one another and our trust.  What struck me after the group had ended was my appreciation of the trust the participants, all seasoned and experienced therapists themselves, had been willing to place with me and my co-leader, allowing us to serve them through our leadership even when the going got tough.

Similarly, my own clients enter group therapy, frequently not because they’re yearning for a group, but because I suggest that group therapy will provide benefits they can’t yet know about.  They step into the void when they agree to enter the laboratory of the group in order to experiment with unaccustomed styles of relating, giving and receiving feedback, and practicing new ways of communicating, perhaps more openly and directly than ever before.  This always takes courage; the void is not comfortable or cozy.  And the benefits are directly proportionate to the risks taken. Groups offer the possibility for revealing over time aspects of self we have hidden for fear of rejection-- and learning we  can be  accepted and even cared for, warts and all.  And most amazing, we may learn that exposing what we have considered to be our warts may be valued by others as making us most loveable.