Groups

Answer:

• The functions of leaders to make the members benefit from the sessions are as follows:-
• The leaders help in setting the goal of the group and need to explain the members how they can benefit from it.
• The leaders need to inform the members about the rules, regulation and the basics information about the group.
• Help the members to express their feelings to the group and how to build cohesion within the group.
• Inform each member about their role in the group.
• Support the members to come out of past experience.
• Help the members to focus both on personal goal and group goal.
• Motivate the members to be expressive and participate.
• The leaders should focus on how the members can fulfill their needs and needs of the group.
• Act wisely during conflict situation.
It would be important for the leader to discuss the guidelines that would help them to be active members. These guidelines are:-
• The members should respect each others' feelings and maintain confidentiality in order to build trust.
• The members should express all kinds of emotions to the group members in order to get connected and accepted by the group. Hiding the feelings may not give clear picture to other members.
• The members should communicate clearly and expressively so that the other members can understand their feelings easily.
• The members should disclose about themselves as per the requirements, situations, group goal and their will.
• The members should participate actively.
• The members should be ready to face challenges in the outside world.
• The members should be an active listener and treat every other member equally.
• The members should be receptive to feedback.
• The member should not label themselves and should be open to express their feelings.
• The members should work efficiently for the progress of the group.
• The members should develop new skills and practice those in day to day life.
• They should be clear about the personal goal.
• The group members should avoid giving advice, acting judgmental or asking unfriendly or sarcastic questions.
• The member needs to utilize the learning to cope up with the challenges faced in day to day life.
• The coleader needs to build trust with the members by showing right kind of attitude and actions. These are the factors that help the coleader to build trust. They are:-
• The leader should be attentive to the members and listen to them carefully in order to connect easily. The leader should get involved in understanding members' issues and concern in order to build trust.
• The leader should understand the nonverbal communication of members to understand their feelings and thought process.
• The leader needs to empathize with the members in order to extend support and guidance.
• The leader should act genuinely and should not fake his feelings.
• The leader should not disclose more about their personal life as the session focus on the members' personal life. The leader needs to act wisely if asked by members to disclose about his personal problem.
• The leader should handle conflict situations appropriately.
• The leader should focus on maintaining the trust throughout the sessions.
• The degree of structure that should be provided by coleader should be based on different factors. They are:-
• The theoretical knowledge of the leaders
• Type of group
• Number of members
• The stage of group.
Therapeutic structuring is important during initial stage because members are new to each other and to the group environment. They are not clear about various aspects of the group. The structure should be little and appropriate to avoid dependency of the members on the leaders. In this way the members will focus on what they need from the group and will take initiative to solve the issues they have.
Therapeutic structuring would be very effective in proper functioning of the group because members will participate actively, take initiations, understand each others' needs and extend support to each other. This results in building cohesion within the group. The leaders need to monitor and control therapeutic structure throughout the group development.
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It is the responsibility of both the leader and the members if the group struggle at initial stage because members are new to the group environment. Leader needs to create comfortable work atmosphere, clarity about goals, roles and responsibilities, helps in building trust and discussing various aspects of the group. This type of leadership style is called directive and the members fails to take responsibility of failure. If leader don't take responsibility and thinks that his role in the group is minimal then the group will not meet the goal effectively. So it would be important to balance the responsibility of the group between members and the leader.
If the group is lost at the first session, the leader should interact with the members, understand their needs, what they expect from the group etc. Leader needs to make the member understand that the progress of the group depends on participating and taking responsibility equally. Leader should make them differentiate their personal goal with the goal of the group. Leader needs to clarify them about their role and how they can connect with each other.
• Personal goal of members will help them to show direction about what they want to achieve. In order to make the members to have clear understanding about the goal the coleader should counter-ask questions related to their goal. Asking appropriate questions that are linked to members' goal will give more information to the leader and the understanding of how to go ahead with the member. Assisting members in designing their goals in collaborative fashion is the responsibility of the leader. Goal setting is an on-going process and it is the responsibility of the leader to see whether the goal is met at different stages of group process or they want to revise the goals.

Answer:

The factors that are likely to lead to trust in a group both by members and leaders are as follows:-
• Members do not fear to express feelings.
• Members giving more focus to themselves rather than others.
• Revealing personal information in self-disclosure process to connect effectively.
• Members should be goal-oriented.
• The leader should be attentive to the members and listen to them carefully in order to connect easily. The leader should get involved in understanding members' issues and concern in order to build trust.
• The leader should understand the nonverbal communication of members to understand their feelings and thought process.
• The leader needs to empathize with the members in order to extend support and guidance.
• The leader should act genuinely and should not fake his feelings.
• The leader should not disclose more about their personal life as the session focus on the members' personal life. The leader needs to act wisely if asked by members to disclose about his personal problem.
• The leader should handle conflict situations appropriately.
• The leader should focus on maintaining the trust throughout the sessions.
The sense of trust can be felt in a group when members show interest in participating in group activities, cooperation among members, following the rules and regulations of the group, express feelings without any fear, ready to take risk, understand each other, listen to other members and extend support etc.
Major barrier to the development of trust are as follows:-
• Anger and suspicion with members and not expressing their feelings.
• Members not clear about their need or are too much expressive and does not match to the needs of other members.
• Focusing more on their issue and not giving importance to others' concern.
• Not taking participation in self-disclosure process
• Members not ready to take risk.
• Members not clear about personal goals and group goals.