Analysis of the group of Alekseichik A.E. “Intensive therapeutic life” Professional experience What I learned as a professional in a group (from the therapist, other participants in the group process). From the therapist: to treat spoken words more responsibly, to find words that are essential, effective, that encourage experiences, internal search, comprehension and awareness, to action. Acceptance of the group, oneself and one’s experiences, other group members as they are, unconditional acceptance, which often led to an understanding of what is behind a person’s behavior, what is important for him in his experiences, how he interacts with himself themselves and others. The use of images and metaphors (quotes, parables, anecdotes) to create a certain atmosphere and conditions in the group, for internal search and expression of what is important to the participants. The use of provocations to help participants discover such ways of being in the group and in life. that create difficulties in communicating with others, limit their development and formation. Determining the rules (conditions) of life in the group, allowing you to create a space of trust and openness and facilitating the fruitful work of participants with their problems. For other participants in the group process: Allowing you to express your own thoughts and feelings experienced here and now Share your own experience of solving a particular problem Take risks, be more decisive and open Allow yourself to make mistakes Allow yourself to act in conditions of uncertainty and a high level of your own anxiety Sympathy and empathy for other group members, perceiving their problems as your own, and jointly solving these problems .Working with money. Using money as an equivalent for expressing certain entities for their concretization and materialization. Clarify, specify the request, feelings... “What kind of help are you asking for?” “How can I help you?” “To whom exactly and what feelings do you have?”...What did you learn about the functioning of the therapeutic group? The theoretical part of the seminar is devoted to establishing the rules of life for the group, identifying the main entities and phenomena with which and thanks to which the group process will take place. The therapist becomes familiar with the essences through definitions, images, symbols and metaphors on a fairly abstract level, which leads to the revival of these essences and thanks to which each of the group members can find a corresponding experience in their experience and immerse themselves in it. The images and definitions presented by the therapist create a therapeutic field, a space within which the life of the group occurs. To influence group, individual and interpersonal processes in a group, the therapist quite often uses quotes, parables, and anecdotes, which is perceived by the participants not so much as the directive influence of the therapist, but as a special context that is conducive to certain internal experiences and external actions. Examples of therapeutic entities and phenomena from Alekseychik are: life, spirit, soul, health, illness, wholeness, unity, forgiveness, gratitude, eternity, time, acceptance, freedom, responsibility, etc. Already, at the theoretical stage of the group, the internal processes of the participants are activated, associated with the experience and awareness of images that appear, thanks to the skillful use of the therapist’s word. An atmosphere of trust, unity, safety, and openness is created in a group space. With the help of rules, the therapist establishes the conditions under which the work will subsequently take place. Basic conditions of ITL: Acceptance of life, the world, the group, oneself, the therapist, acceptance - unconditional! Sufficient Truth - God is truth! “Live not by lies” Our activity. What reality is is the consequences of our actions. The real, the real, unites when you act! Freedom. Free means healthier! Apostle Peter: everything is allowed to me, but not everything is useful! I canpossess everything, but not everything possesses me...Freedom is not will, not self-will...Responsibility. We are responsible for everything, we have to pay for everything, and whoever doesn’t want to pay will have to pay... We are responsible for each other... Safety. It is guaranteed that we are together, we create guarantees for each other. The Lord, by His grace, guarantees us eternal life, but does not guarantee that we will live to see the next day... During the acquaintance process, the participants introduce themselves, state their name, education, current professional activities, voice their current personal and professional problems that they want to work on group. At the stage of acquaintance between group members, the therapist notes who reacts to whom and how, what and how patterns of one participant provoke the reactions of another, and similar problems of the participants. The therapist asks the participant who has volunteered to work through his problem to find people in the group who are similar to the direct participants in the problem situation and to choose a therapist from the group. And experience in the present tense, here and now, a problematic situation from the past, not just tell, share, but live through the current problem through direct actions. Often, to increase the intensity and effectiveness of the participants, the therapist aggravates the crisis, provoking participants to specific actions, setting his own example, telling parables and anecdotes that correspond to the situation, influencing physically, transferring money, which in this case is the symbol and embodiment of certain experiences and phenomena such as gratitude, guilt, forgiveness, responsibility, etc. With the help of money, the therapist brings specifics to what is happening, materializes the experiences of the participants, intensifies the crisis, measures, correlates, compares... Thanks to the actions of the therapist and group members to create and intensify the crisis , a situation is created when a participant solving his problem is brought to a certain threshold (limit), beyond which an insight arises, leading to awareness and understanding of the problem, in parallel with this, or beyond this the participant is brought to the point that he can demonstrate those qualities and properties that are necessary to overcome and resolve the current problem, to experience the situation in a new way, to demonstrate spontaneity and variety of reactions, which, according to one of the therapist’s definitions, are signs of a person’s mental health. One of the results is the release and experience of emotions repressed or suppressed in the past, catharsis often occurs, which leads to the resolution of the problem not only on the intellectual level, but also on the emotional and somatic level, releasing the clamps and stiffness that arose and were present in the body before resolution problematic situation. Learned about the factors that contribute to the effective work of a group: collaboration, cohesion, intensity, effectiveness, involvement, openness, essence, identification, empathy, sympathy, relevance (here and now), etc. Learned about the existence of four stages of group dynamics: 1. The initial stage is “childhood”2. transitional stage - “youth”3. productive stage – “maturity”4. the final stage is “advanced age”, i.e. the group as a whole goes through these four stages corresponding to the development of an individual person, each stage is characterized by certain characteristics. For example, at the first stage there is less responsibility of the participants, more of the therapist, at this stage the role of the therapist is leading, directing, regulating, and at subsequent stages the active role of the therapist decreases, and the role of the participants and their responsibility for what is happening increases. I learned that processes in a group occur simultaneously on three levels: Personal (individual) - how I, here and now, perceive, evaluate and experience what is happening to me and others; Interpersonal - how group members interact with each other, who feels better with whom interact, and for whom it is more difficult, ways of interactionparticipants: cooperation, conflicts, oppositions, unity, etc. The group as a whole organism - where the group is now, in what direction it is moving, what helps and what prevents the group from solving problems and developing, how the group can be helped, what conditions need to be created to increase work productivity. What helped (prevented) being included in the life of the group Helped: involvement in what was happening, which was achieved through acceptance and immersion in the problems and feelings of others, empathy, identification with what was happening, letting what was happening through oneself. Hindered: fixation on one’s own thoughts about whether something was right or wrong. what is happening to me now, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of committing an untimely and inappropriate act and being judged. Closedness in expressing one's own feelings and thoughts. Inability to share one’s own understanding and experience of what is happening. What contributed (prevented) the solution of problems in the group. Contributed to: the conditions created by the therapist, his care and participation in creating a space that contributed to the manifestation of the participants’ actual feelings, internal search and disclosure of what is important for a person and significant. Thanks to his own spirituality, sincerity, honesty, and activity, the therapist set a certain standard that he wanted to meet due to his capabilities and limitations. The effectiveness of the group members, their courage and determination in self-disclosure and expression of their own feelings, thoughts, the trust of the participants in the therapist and the process of psychotherapy. Obstacles: insufficient experience of participation in psychotherapeutic groups, fear of the therapist associated with the mythologization of his personality and methods of influence, the desire to do better than you can to do based on your current capabilities - the attitude is either good or not at all... Thoughts about how what I want to do here and now can affect further relationships with one or another group member - as a manifestation of insufficient maturity. An evaluative view of what is happening. Insufficient knowledge of psychology and psychotherapy as a process with its dynamics and characteristics of its course. Insufficient level of spirituality and narrowness of worldview and worldview. Inability and unwillingness to see life deeply and multifaceted, but instead to perceive life flatly, simplified, unambiguously. The place and role of the therapist in the group, his relationship with the participants. For me, the role of the therapist was to be a guide for us, and sometimes a “shepherd” into the world of spiritual and mental life. By his own example and examples from the lives of other great people, the therapist set high standards of honesty, spirituality, and humanity. His care and attention were aimed at helping the participant understand and comprehend the deep features of the development of the participants’ lives, how we shape our reality, how we interact with others, what our actions and deeds lead to certain consequences, and our attitude towards life, with life, makes us who we are. The choice of what to do about this remains with the participants, the therapist only points out possible options, alternatives. The therapist’s relationship with the participants was very dynamic, the therapist’s acceptance of us as we are, caring for us, showing love to us served as a guarantee of our safety and at the same time, his unambiguous position in relation to our inferiority, stupidity, sinfulness allowed him to act and influence the participants directly and often painfully, but certainly responsibly and for the benefit of us. His ability to see, see, and often foresee what stands behind this or that action, behavior and, what the consequences will be, assumes that the therapist looks at the situation from different perspectives, as if through various “filters,” for example, through the eyes of a teacher, doctor, direct group member, observer, psychotherapist, parent, child , spiritual mentor, etc. Which allows him to perceive the versatility of what is happening and reveal it to the participants. How much is receivedcorresponded to my expectations. What I received from the group exceeded all my expectations. Before this group, I had experience of participating in A.E. Alekseichik’s group, where I was outside the circle. Being in a circle is significantly different from being outside the circle. The intensity of the experience and involvement in the circle is significantly higher. At some moments I had the feeling that I was at the limit of my spiritual capabilities, that I was about to be torn apart by mental pain... On an intellectual level, for most of the group I was at a dead end, not knowing what to do at one point or another, not understanding , what is happening now and how should I deal with it. The experience that I gained in realizing my limitations, closedness, and weakness served as an impetus for the transformation of my self-perception, the perception of others and life in general. The experience of my own spiritual underdevelopment horrified me about my way of being, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it expanded my vision of what life in general is in its depth and diversity, integrity, unpredictability, spirituality and soulfulness. Through my participation in the group, I realized how incredibly little I know, how much I can do, and how much I do even less to change my own worldview and help others. Personal experience: The degree of involvement in the life of the group The degree of my involvement in the life of the group was high at the level of internal experiences and empathy, I was deeply and intensely worried, rooting for the other participants, together with them, but the degree of involvement expressed in direct actions was very low , I see the reasons for my low activity in the following personal attitudes and beliefs: expressing myself may not be safe; opening myself makes me vulnerable to others, which can lead to pain - low level of self-disclosure; fear of what may happen if I lose control over myself something unacceptable, scary and irreparable; fear of expressing anger, rage, malice - inability to express “negative” emotions; fear of hurting yourself and others, offending someone, harming someone. fear of being unaccepted, rejected, expelled - low level of trust in oneself and others; comparison, evaluation, correlation of one’s own behavior, statements, experiences with the behavior, statements and experiences of others, according to the following criteria: relevance, timeliness, stupidity-smartness, sincerity, literacy, decisiveness, openness, acceptability, etc. Comparisons are often not in your favor. Behind the above, a pattern emerges of opposing oneself to others, competitiveness, self-doubt, expressed in the internal struggle between what I want to do and what I do, resulting in confrontation with others, in order to prove one’s superiority. To what extent did my way of living in the group reflect my daily life: In terms of activity, external expression, effectiveness - my way of living in the group completely reflected my daily life. My position of keeping a low profile, observing what is happening from afar, postponing important decisions and actions was fully demonstrated in the group. The manifestation of my qualities in the group such as indecisiveness, cowardice, fear of making mistakes, suppression of my own feelings, fear of opening up to others - made my stay in the group unbearably difficult, because... what I was experiencing came out, but I held it in, and then regretted and blamed myself for it. In the aspect of empathy, sympathy for other group members, my way of living in the group was different from my everyday life. In everyday life, I was little interested in the problems, feelings and pain of other people, but in the group I was able to identify with the problems of other participants, feel their pain and suffering and live them as my own. What problems did I solve in the group, how much progress did I make in solving them. My request was aimed at working with one’s own indecision and inability to express aggression and anger. In terms of working on indecision, I was able to make progress thanks to the fact that I decided to read and share my own poem on