A Weekend Encounter: Strength from the Group

Senior Editor Leon Jaroff recently spent a weekend with a Cleveland encounter group. Here he reports on his experiences:

ABOUT the only thing that the dozen participants in Personal Growth Lab had in common was their need for the giant-size box of Kleenex conveniently placed on a round table littered with coffee cups and cigarette butts. Nearly everyone was in tears at least once during the emotion-charged weekend encounter in the basement activities room of the Methodist Church of the Redeemer in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and two of the women wept almost continuously. Otherwise, we represented a diverse group: a married couple, an internal revenue employee, a few housewives, a physical-ed instructor, a secretary, a lawyer, a college student, and a commercial artist with a polio-crippled arm. Some of us had been attracted by the excellent reputation of the group leader, Sylvia Evans, a psychologist and therapist with the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Some had registered (fee only $30 for the weekend) at the suggestion of their ministers or their therapists.

The setting was informal. We sat on chairs, benches and a sofa, or sprawled on the floor in a large circle. Our attire was equally casual: sports shirts, slacks, or dungarees. Unlike members of the more highly publicized encounter groups, none of us took off any more than his shoes. But before the session was over (four hours Friday evening, eleven hours on Saturday and nine hours on Sunday), many facades and illusions had been stripped away.

Sylvia, an attractive blonde woman with three grown children, used a number of well-tested psychological devices to draw all of us fully into the sessions. We did yoga deep-breathing exercises, and sat back-to-back in pairs, talking to each other only about our immediate feelings, the "here and now" that is all-important to Gestaltists. We looked long and often uncomfortably into each other's eyes, then walked around in silence with our eyes closed, making physical contact with each other--clasping hands, embracing, caressing --whatever we were moved to do.

After each exercise, Sylvia asked: "Does anyone want to share his experience with us?" When one of us made a revealing response, she deftly turned the group's attention --like a movie director shifting a camera--toward him, moving in for a closeup that was soon followed by flashbacks and moments of drama.

One of those moments occurred on Saturday, while Barbara, a housewife, was nearing the end of a tearful recital about her husband. Suddenly she turned to a trim, young, redheaded girl, and said: "Frances, I wish I could be strong like you." Her envy was understandable. In the first two days of the encounter, Frances had seemed confident, sensitive to the problems of others, familiar with psychiatric jargon, and articulate almost to the point of being glib.

But Frances responded unexpectedly: "Don't call me strong, not now. Not now." Sylvia turned to look at Frances. "Why do you say now? Perhaps you should close your eyes and fantasize. Tell us what you visualize, whatever comes into your head." "I see a lot of black, sticklike shapes," Frances began. "They are moving around, but one is becoming more prominent. It represents today, and it is very important." "Frances," one of the girls interrupted, "I don't know what the hell you are talking about."

Frances paused, swallowing. "All right, I'll tell you what I'm really talking about. Last April, my husband shot himself and left me with seven children--and I can't go on, I don't have the strength to go on." She put her head down on the sofa, sobbing convulsively. All of us, shocked and concerned, looked to Sylvia for help. She was silent, watching Frances compassionately. "If you let us," she said, "maybe we can help." At Sylvia's suggestion, Frances, still sobbing, lay on her back in the middle of the floor. We all knelt around her, placed our hands under her, lifted her above our heads and began to rock her back and forth. It all seemed rather silly at first, but Frances' face soon began to relax and the sobbing stopped.

After a few minutes we gently lowered Frances back to the floor, then placed comforting hands on her. "Now, one at a time," Sylvia said softly, "please return to your seats." (She explained to me later that had we all left simultaneously, Frances might have associated our departure with her earlier tragedy, in which all of her support was withdrawn at once.) Frances rose slowly, lit a cigarette and turned to look at us. "Thank you all," she said, her face breaking into a radiant smile. "I feel much better."

There were other emotional outbursts. Bob, a tall, powerfully built man, who had been largely reticent for most of the weekend, suddenly began to talk after I had expressed my enthusiasm for tennis. When competing in tennis, he said, or in other athletics, against someone not as good as he was, he often let up so much that he lost.

Sylvia saw her opportunity and seized it. The camera swung to Bob, and he was soon talking about how his father had often beaten his stepmother. "Are you still angry at your father?" Sylvia asked. Only disappointed, Bob insisted. Sylvia nodded knowingly. She instructed Bob to place a sofa cushion on the floor, to pretend that it was his father, and to express his "disappointment" to the pillow while he was hitting it. Bob took a few halfhearted swipes, and unconvincingly remonstrated with his father. Sylvia spoke sharply: "Say you're angry, not just disappointed --say it!" Suddenly Bob was pounding the pillow ferociously, half sobbing: "I'm angry at you, angry because you were so brutal. Why did you have to do it? Why?" Then he was in control again, looking a little sheepish.

Sylvia did not relent. "I want you to pick someone here and do something with them," she suggested. Bob looked around, chose the other big man in the group--Bernie --and suggested that they wrestle. At first the bout was only mildly competitive. But suddenly the two big men were ricocheting angrily from wall to wall while the rest of us scrambled for cover. It was obvious that Bob was a stronger and more experienced wrestler. But suddenly, as Bernie was squeezing him in a scissors grip, Bob went limp and gave up. "What's the matter, strong man," Bernie taunted. "You're not so strong after all, are you?" We all tensed, waiting for Bob's reaction, but there was none.

With Sylvia's guidance, we all talked to Bob about his problems, gradually bringing them into focus. Bob, conditioned by his father's brutality, is afraid of the damage his own strength can cause if he brings it to bear--or worse yet, if he loses control. Thus he strives to maintain complete control of his emotions and even of his speech.

By Sunday evening, Sylvia's camera had focused on everyone. Linda, uncertain of her femininity, sat opposite an empty chair representing her mother and accused her of always wanting a boy. She was reassured by several of us that she seemed feminine, indeed. Bernie, whose wife was leaving him, and Barbara, who was leaving her husband, each took the part of the other's mate and got deeply involved in an angry, accusative pushing match. Barbara, usually very controlled, was able to express her feelings freely for the first time in years. Carl, unaware of his pent-up anger, which Sylvia and several group members had sensed, was asked to walk around the circle, stopping in front of each of us and making a hostile remark. Sylvia had to drag his first statement from him. But his anger quickly accelerated as he made his rounds. "Why in the hell do you wear those stupid religious earrings?" he asked Barbara. "Stop being a clam," he yelled at Bob, "you're letting the rest of us down." When it was over, Carl could not deny that he at last recognized his hostility.

On Sunday, as Marcia was describing an unhappy interlude in her life, Sylvia, noticing the look of concern on my face, asked me why I seemed so involved. "I guess that Marcia's recitation disturbed me," I admitted. "Leon, come out into the middle of the room," said Sylvia. I stood up, and under the encouraging eyes of the group members whom by now I knew so well, stepped forward, with little self-consciousness. I was actually looking forward to an experience that only two days before I would have approached with a sense of dread. The camera swung toward me.

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