64th Annual Conference

Saturday, March 10

Afternoon Workshops

2:15-5:30 P.M.

Workshop 91

The Steering Problem: Navigating Among Competing Group Agendas

Chair:

Neal Spivack, Ph.D., CGP, Psychologist III, Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, Bronx, New York

Group leaders must frequently navigate between subgroups that have conflicting agendas.  Leaders face a dilemma, since promoting conditions favored by one subgroup can alienate others.  Through discussion and demonstration, this workshop will examine the pulls leaders feel to favor different subgroups and explore how leaders can manage these splits.

demonstration, didactic, experiential, sharing of work experiences

Learning Objectives:

The attendee will be able to:
1. Be able to understand that a steering problem refers to the leader's dilemma of how to work with subgroups that have valid yet competing agendas.
2. Become familiar with a technique for analyzing subgroup conflict.
3. Appreciate how a leader is pulled to favor one subgroup’s agenda over another’s.
4. Identify leadership stances that might help a leader navigate between splits in the group.

Course References:

1. Bion and Group Psychotherapy. London: Routledge. 157-175.

2. Gustafson, J. and Cooper, L. (1992). After Basic Assumptions: On holding a specialized versus a general theory of participant observation in small groups. In M. Pines (Ed.). Bion and Group Psychotherapy. London: Routledge. 157-175.
3. Johnson, B. (1992). Polarity Managment. Amherst: HRD Press.
4. Smith, K. and Berg, D. (1987). Paradoxes of Group Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.