66th Annual Conference

Thursday, February 19

Morning Workshops

10:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M.

Workshop 8

Building Stronger Communities: Mapping Alternatives to Reactive Communication

Chair:

Claudia A. Byram, Ph.D., CGP, Private Practice, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Open to participants with less than four years of group psychotherapy experience

Using the SAVI model (System for Analyzing Verbal Interaction, Agazarian and Simon) we will map reactive behaviors that introduce noise into verbal communication and point to alternatives: communication pathways that increase the chances that the information will be received and processed. Such decoded information can solve problems in a group, family or a larger system.

demonstration-experiential-didactic-sharing of work experiences

Learning Objectives:

The attendee will be able to:

1. Differentiate behaviors that introduce noise in verbal communication, that is, introduce ambiguity, contradiction or redundancy (entropic behaviors).

2. Identify and explore internal processes that contribute to producing external behavior that decreases noise, discriminating and integrating the information in the message (neg-entropic behaviors).

3. Identify and practice at least one behavioral strategy for decoding the information in fight behavior.

Course References:

1. Byram, C., Marshall, E. & Simon, A. Red, Yellow, Green: Modifying communication patterns in an elementary school system. In SCT in Action (2005) S. Gantt & Y. Agazarian (Eds). New York: i Universe. 99-128.

2. Simon, A. (1993). Using SAVI for Couples' Therapy. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 4, 39-62.

3. Simon A, & Agazarian, Y. M. (2000). SAVI - the System for Analyzing Verbal Interaction, in The Process of Group Psychotherapy: Systems for Analyzing Change, Beck, A. P. & Lewis, C. M. (Eds), Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Assn, 357-380.