Re: Topic #3 Introduction

[Midi Berry]

Title: Re: Topic #3 Introduction



on 11/13/02 8:31 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Hi everybody,
 Thanks for your replies; I'm learning so much about this topic, how I think, don't think:):), present my thoughts, etc., so thanks to all of you for the space and the exhchange.
 In my small amount of experience with naming the agenda at the outset, and stating that people should feel free to leave or see the group as not right for them has met with no reaction on the other side, but to continue with indirect criticisms and attacks, sometimes becoming even more insidious.
In regard to the subversiveness being used as a metaskill which might be a playful denial: my idea was more to change my own assemblage point from feeling victimized to feeling challenged, thereby allowing a more creative and fun approach within myself to the subversive element. Your idea of just saying hello makes me smile already. In doing that you are naming and welcoming it as well as staying curious and open.
 Yes, I think there are frozen with fear parts, but the group has named this, in addition to naming an honoring of the groups' process and it's timing around exploring the same. 
 There feels to be something more I want to get at around how to work with the subversive element if I think of it as being right somehow without making a program of that idealogy but rather letting it somehow show me it's way. Could it be a shadow side of the group,again, the not we, showing itself and wanting somehow to be expressly valued and manifested in the group?
 I notice that no one responded to this question and I wonder if it just does'nt hold any energy or?
Also, I would like to explore moving the discussion to the intrapersonal level in addition to the field level. When is it okay, necessary, incumbent upon the facilitator(s) and or the group to hold someone accountable for how their personal history has a part or is informing their subversive behavior?
Over and out:)
Ada
 


Ada hi
everybody hi

 When is it okay, necessary, incumbent upon the facilitator(s) and or the group 
 to hold someone accountable for how their personal history has a part or is 
 informing their subversive behavior?

for me today an answer is when spirit moves the facilitator and or the group to do so. each group has its own timing and uniqueness. 

at the same time we know enough from studying about groups over many years to have observed that they often tend to follow a similar pattern of development and that conflict will arise around 'who's in charge here' and 'who makes the rules/decides' after the group has gone through its initial 'politeness' phase. it's the 'storm' stage of a 'form, storn, norm and perform' perspective on group development.

Seen in a detached way, from the group's point of view, conflict that arises around these power struggle issues helps to inform the group about its latent strength and capability to perform its function as a group, so one view is that the more a facilitator/group members can tolerate and even encourage conflict out into the open, the quicker the group will grow into its power. at the same time, too much conflict too soon can prevent the group ever forming. and sometimes that can even be the subversive energy's agenda - to stop the group being a group.

i used to do a lot of work with groups containing people who 'didn't want to be there'. they were ordered to attend by their companies, and they were wonderful subversives because their bodies were in the room but their hearts and minds were wanting to be elsewhere. some were willing to be silent non-members. others were actively seeking revenge on the system that had 'put them there' by trying to destroy the group. a kind of 'if i can't be doing what i want i'll damn well make sure that everybody suffers'. 

i learned so much about swimming in subversive energy from these wonderful people.

looking back at your question above at the intrapersonal level, i think that some of us use groups - often without awareness that we are doing so - to discover our own strength and actually have to do some of our growth work there. we do not get some challenge and feedback we need in one to one relationship and / or inner work and so we have to pit our strength against the group to discover our own boundaries and power. we need an energy that is bigger than us to get to know our limits. it can then be really important for us that the group and facilitator challenge us and mirror back to us how we are affecting others. if we are identified with our weakness (and so many of us are when we are in groups) it can be shocking to discover that others are finding us powerful. again we are helping the group as well as ourself by challenging and trying to subvert - it is the way the group gets to know and define and agree publicly what is 'we' and 'not we'.

i had a thought, dear Ada, that it can also be fun to turn your question on its head:

 to hold a facilitator/group

Re: Topic #3 Introduction

[River8da]

Hi all,
 Thanks so much for responding with your great thoughts and ideas to the question around 'the subversive element'. I'm back from my trip and my jetlag and I appreciate your patience in waiting for my reply.
I'll do my best to answer and discuss with you all your questions knowing, at best, I'll probably not cover it all, and at worst, I'll misinterpret.
Franc, your question about what the element wants to bring in. When I'm able to value and or give this voice the benefit of a doubt, I think it wants to give feedback to the group that for whatever reason has not yet been given and or received. If this is the case, the manner in which the feedback is brought in needs to be addressed as the subversive double signal belies the intention of feedback; because by definition, feedback,(negative or positive), is supportive and sustaining to whomever it is being offered.
My experience with this element being a ghost role is an interesting one. I find that when I feel undermining in the atmosphere and it hasn't yet been named/picked up as a role, it's less scary. It's then on all of us to own a part of it and work on ourselves around it. Then I can feel a spirit of solidarity around accountability for whatever is in the field. But when subversiveness is consistently being brought in by one or two people, and all interventions to work with it, ie, role theory, have been exhausted, ( which is when I,personally, would name it as subversive), then I start to feel protective of the group and it's cause. Additionally, I feel hopeless as to how to intervene from this point; hence my question.
 The question about explicit naming and implicit labelling is a good one as it make me think about what might happen if subversiveness was named as a spirit in the group, and then using it somehow creatively. You talked about having fun at learning and treating people as more than a role. Hmmm. Perhaps something like the essence of subversiveness being used as a metaskill for the group to learn more about itself, and how it protects itself from the "not we" of the group. I think about the nature of unconsciousness, and how I as an individual sometimes need the awareness of the subversive element to wake up to how I protect myself from the parts of me that are still too scary to relate to.
Any thoughts?
Ada