We were a whole bunch of strangers sitting in a room trying to settle into our brains the reality that we were going to have to meet in this very room for the next nine weeks. This was whether we liked it or not. The task was our main focus for this first meeting. We had to devise a set of group goals as we were all trying to come to grips with our anxiety, I believe. Therefore, we each stated a few. I initiated this first group with an activity to try to get to know one another. It felt funny to just jump right in and start working without even knowing the people’s names in my group. I heard Ted mentioning something about not liking the idea about meeting in groups. I felt the same and assumed everyone else did. For this reason I stated the first rule to increase the comfort level. At this point, everyone else began to express their individual goals yet group goals. At this point I was trying to analyze everyone’s behaviors just try to figure out what the next nine weeks would be like. I came pretty close to my conclusions.

I believe during our group time we related well to one another. We were all so different, however. It was a very mixed group culturally and from all different cohorts. What was interesting was to see was how all the different ages and personalities acted toward one another. It almost felt like a reality TV show. For example, Ted was the only male in our group and he was the first one to make a comment about that. In the beginning he appeared to be annoying everyone because he just couldn’t stop talking.

I sensed he wanted to be in some type of control and I attributed that to him being conscious of being a male and taking on that role. Joan was also very vocal for our first five sessions, and interestingly it was her who began to speak about personal things yet she back down and became more of the supporter almost midway through the session. I thought immediately that might have to do with the fact that she works in a domestic violence shelter. Jaime, I could not figure out for a while, her expressions never seemed to agree with me. It almost felt as if she tried really hard to not be a follower. Her interactions seemed forced and this was greatly confirmed more so when she made a statement about not feeling like she would bond with us in only nine weeks. Connie started off as extremely withdrawn in the beginning of the group.

She only spoke if something was presented to her. Interestingly, during the group that I facilitated she disclosed her feelings about being treated “less than” and began to open up and become more engaged. However, we lost her again during the last three sessions. Jessica, I sensed was naïve. I believe our group members already signed her off from the very beginning because I remember that very first group she made a comment in which she used the word “manipulate” and Joan, Jaime, and Ted reacted to her. Joan even made a comment about that not being the best word to use in that description.

We did well during our first few stages of our group. However, I believe we reached to a certain point where we became stagnant and didn’t grow much or move forward. We defined our structure easily when we knew what our roles were going to be during the first 5 weeks. We had consistency, commitment, and bonding during those weeks. However, when those roles were fulfilled and we still had group sessions to attend to we began to lose the consistency and productivity began to decline.

For example, we all volunteered when to run our session. For five weeks, we all came to our group to listen and follow the facilitator for that week. Our main conflict was with Jessica, who placed Ted as the messenger to have us lie to the professor about her presence. We could not get past this because I believe Ted, Jaime, and Joan had a difficult time with confronting Jessica with the issue. In addition, after the incident, a few sessions went by before we were all finally together at one time. At this point Joan detached herself from dealing with the issue and did not want to discuss any further. However, before then I sensed we were slowly losing her because we heard less of her each time except when she felt the need to console or support somebody who for a little while was Ted.

What I believe happened was that their was so much bonding during our other groups because everyone was able to vent about our conflict freely that when Jessica came back, it disrupted our cohesion because the trust level was gone. I believe it would have taken us a few more sessions to start to get to know each other and learn to work together with all of us their and when we were productive one of our members was always missing and that was Jessica.

As for the communication, I think I was the most open about the way I felt about things. My members also agreed and verbally expressed this to me. I think for the most part we all verbally communicated cooperatively; however, there were hidden agendas. Connie’s body language was informing us she really did not want to be there. I do not think our group pushed her out. I saw her a few times looking through other things while we were in-group. Jessica, consistently, said she hated feeling like she was losing time. I observed her doing other work during our sessions also. Ted appeared to be really committed and I suspect he was probably as committed as I was because we both always felt the need to say something. Interestingly, when I did bring up the situation to Jessica during one of our sessions, Joan, who was the person who expressed feeling angry at Jessica was the most empathic and even described and spoke on the group’s behalf stating “we all felt like anuses” when she clearly was sick. I think one of our biggest barriers was my group’s inability to confront issues. Jaime, Ted and Joan expressed not wanting to hurt other people’s feelings and Connie; I do not think she cared enough about her presence.

Leadership. I believe I was one of the members who took on a lead role in the group. A role that was clearly defined as being the most assertive. Ted made a comment to the group about not liking it when I was quiet the day I had laryngitis. However, Joan, indirectly agreed by says generally that we lost one of our voices during one of our sessions but attributed the monotony during that session to the change in time and not my inability to speak. It was almost as if she would not accept that I had that much influence over the group. Perhaps she does not feel like I do. I also observed Jaime take a leadership position a few times, she played the role as the mediator sometimes and brought our excitement down when the discussions about Jessica would get too wild. However, I think she struggled with that a little bit because she was not consistent. There were times when she expressed resentment and then next session she was empathic and disagreed with talking about people without their presence. I believe Ted and I displayed maintenance behaviors by wanting to keep the mood of the group in a sharing and personal. Joan and Jaime displayed more task oriented behaviors they both brought in assignments during their presentations and it was clear that it was not easy for them to shift abruptly from one topic to the other, especially Joan. If we were talking about homework assignments she wanted to stay on topic and if I brought up something else up, she will either not engage fully or try to bring the focus back to what she wanted to vent about. Jaime followed this same pattern but did it a bit more passively. Connie was pulled in whatever direction the group went.

Power. I believe I was influential in the group because I was very open about my feelings and described a lot of personal details that made my group understand where I came from. I believe Joan was also influential because she offered a lot of insight to many of our discussions and even going as far as playing the therapist role. Connie and Jessica were the least influential in leadership. The difference between Connie and Jessica is that group would probably run the same whether or not she was present. Jessica, however, was loud and sometimes annoying because she will break patterns of the group because she made presence known and split the group. For example, we would be having a discussion and she will get up and ask me to help her with her necklace. This will cause our group to split and then we would have two different discussions going on at the same time.

In summary, we had a long-standing conflict that was not resolved in the best way because we lost the support of some of our members in addressing it. This caused us to lose productivity and it felt as if a we regressed a stage and went back to rebellion once we have reached a level of conformity and commitment. I sensed internal power struggles going on especially between Joan and me. Interestingly I felt this way about Jaime initially and then I felt her support toward the end. I believe we achieved a few of our goals like addressing listening skills and actually practicing them by catching ourselves when we would interrupt others. Ted seemed to be the only one who had a hard time doing this. He just could not stop talking. We lost Connie again and Jessica never quite fit in after the conflict.

I believe we also increased our comfort level although apparently we were not comfortable enough that we can all confront issue. This group’s trend was mostly to not deal with it nor talk about it. I would not allow it because I always brought it to the table. We achieved a level of active participation but were lost during our last 2 sessions. Some say it was our change in-group time others say it was the stress of wrapping up the end of the semester. I think it was because we didn’t deal with issues effectively and started losing our cohesiveness