64th Annual Conference

Friday, March 9

Early Bird Open Sessions

7:15 A.M. – 8:15 A.M.

Session 211

Confronting the Relationship Between Public Issues as Private Troubles

Chair: 

Kathleen Hubbs Ulman, Ph.D., CGP, FAGPA, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

Presenter:

Zorena Bolton, M.S.S.W., Private Practice, Austin, Texas

The group leader and participants express painful concerns and the public issues to which they are related. The work of C. Wright Mills sets the frame. Opportunities and challenges in addressing this relationship, as group psychotherapists, including the role of splitting as a coping mechanism in groups will be addressed.

Learning Objectives:

The attendee will be able to:

1. Identify the theoretical and actual relationship between private troubles and public issues as outlined by C. Wright Mills.
2. Identify examples of their own painful concerns and the public issues associated with them.
3. Identify the vulnerability of members of their groups with respect to such public issues as a tightening economic situation, the rising debt burden, the erosion of political and personal freedoms and splitting along religious and cultural lines.
4. Use their knowledge and experience of splitting in groups to address racial, cultural, gender, economic and differences.
 

Course References:

1. Mills, C. (1956). The Power Elite. Oxford, England; Oxford University Press.