Time and time again I have seen that there is a wide range of interpersonal behaviors that push the other person to react unfavorably to us when our intent is connection and closeness. In a process group we draw attention to the motivation for our actions and explore the desire to connect with each other. We are unique individuals and our need to connect manifests in different ways. When others misinterpret our motivation we feel hurt, rejected, and often confused.
I quote Irvin Yalom: “… advice-giving may reflect a resistance to more intimate engagement in which the group members attempt to manage relationships rather than to connect.”
You might be surprised that your group therapist would discourage advice giving. You are in a supportive environment, another person has a problem, and you have an idea how to fix it, or you might have even had similar experience and you figured out what to do, the hard way. Now you would like to save their time and energy, by telling them what worked for you. Yet your therapist will likely discourage you from doing this.
When we give advice, we are offering something. While the content of the advice might be helpful or sometimes not, in a process group we focus on something different: we explore the emotional underbelly in the relationship between the advice seeker or receiver and the advice giver. We slow down the process and examine ourselves. We do not have time for this in real life, but in a group we offer ourselves to the other group members with our reactions to them, allowing ourselves to be affected by them and then verbalize our feelings and reactions. This is a gift we can give each other in our relational world. We are affected by each other all the time and our actions are based on our underlying feelings, which very often we are not even aware of. Process group allows us to take the time and look at these underlying feelings.
In this spirit, advice giving comes into a different light. We want to step beyond managing our
interpersonal relationships, giving and receiving – we have plenty of time to practice that in our life outside of group. We want to connect, feel the connection, the intimacy, and become more aware of our roadblocks and our unique way of seeking deep seated connection.
