64th Annual Conference

Thursday, March 8

Morning Workshops

10:00 A.M.-1:15 P.M.

Workshop 4

The Negative Impact on Advice Giving in the Psychodynamic Group Setting

Chair:   

Janet Resnick, Ph.D., Faculty, Weekend Group Process Leader, Group Supervisor, The Center for Group Studies, New York, New York

Little is written about the negative impact of advice giving in a psychodynamic group. This workshop demonstrates how advice giving interferes with members relating emotionally to one another, inhibits the focus on the "here and now" processes in group and can be a countertransference enactment by the group leader.

experiential, sharing of work experiences, demonstration, didactic

Learning Objectives

The attendee will be able to:
1. Identify how the giving of advice can stop, disguise or otherwise hamper significant emotions from surfacing in the group.
2. Discuss advice giving as a method of control or a means to limiting another's right to express his/her own thoughts and feelings.
3. Detect advice giving when it is an expression of a transference resistance to an unwanted emotional experience.
4. Distinguish between advice giving used to facilitate the group process and advice giving as an expression of a member's resistance or as a countertransference driven enactment on the part of the group leader. 

Course References:

1. Epstein, L. (2004). The Advantage Offered by the Psychoanalytic Group Setting for the Activation and Resolution of Certain Transferences. Contemporary Psychoanalysis. 40(4), 603-615.
2. Ormont, L. (1993). Resolving Resistances to Immediacy in the Group Setting. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy. 42(4), 399-418.
3. Resnick, J. (2006). When Advice Giving is a Resistance to the "Basic Rule" in Analytic Group Therapy. Journal of the Eastern Group Association.