Group Therapy

The meeting began as usual. Robert who had very recently become the organiser of this areas meeting felt frustration at the end of the meeting that Grace who was very in touch with her feelings had once again dominated proceedings. This was group therapy but really it was Grace therapy, as barely anyone managed to get a word in edgeways. All very frustrating.

Yes Grace had issues but so did pretty much everyone else who came here. Grace was just the only one actually verbalising her issues.

It was frustrating as each week he would ask the group how they were and Grace would jump in two seconds after the question was asked it was like she didn’t want the space to be filled with an awkward silence. Or maybe she was a bit of a drama queen and she needed the spotlight to always be on her. Robert was not sure which but he had noticed that week after week that the group attendees just mentally drifted off when Grace opened up. He had seen phones being checked surreptitious and so now he knew he had to do something before members started dropping out of the group.

Robert viewed to consult his mentor to see what advice that he could offer as to how to tackle this.

After putting the chairs away he called his mentor who suggested he might try a new product he had been recommended “Chatty Cards.” He explained to Robert that he had been using them for a few months now and he used them to fill a silence at the beginning of a session by asking everyone present to take a card that most closely resembled how they felt at that moment.

Robert’s said he owned a couple of packs of cards in case more than one person felt the same thing.

And then he invited each person to speak for two minutes if they chose to about why. That way at least he knew the temperature of all of his clients. He promised to send the details over to Robert to see if he thought the use of these could facilitate communication in his sessions with the group.

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