View source for Sensitivity training

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  MeshID      = D012681 |
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'''Sensitivity training''' is a form of training with the goal of making people more aware of their own goals as well as their prejudices, and more sensitive to others and to the dynamics of group interaction.

==Origins==

[[Kurt Lewin]] laid the foundations for sensitivity training in a series of workshops he organised in 1946, using his [[Field theory (psychology)|field theory]] as the conceptual background.<ref>K. Back, ''Beyond Words''(1987) p.97. Lewin's work also influenced the [[Tavistock Clinic]], ibid p. 4</ref>  His work then contributed to the founding of the [[National Training Laboratories]] in [[Bethel, Maine]] in 1947 – now part of the [[National Education Association]] – and to their development of  training groups or [[T-group (social psychology)|T-groups]].

Meanwhile, others had been influenced by the wartime need to help soldiers deal with traumatic stress disorders (then known as [[shell shock]]) to develop group therapy as a treatment technique.  [[Carl Rogers]] in the fifties worked with what he called "small face-to-face groups – groups exhibiting industrial tensions, religious tensions, racial tensions, and therapy groups in which many personal tensions were present".<ref>C. Rogers, ''On Becoming a Person'' (1961) p. 334</ref> Along with others drawing on the ideas of the [[Human Potential Movement]], he extended the group idea to broad population of 'normals' seeking personal growth,<ref name=Gregory221>R. Gregory ed., ''The Oxford Companion to the Mind'' (Oxford 1987) p.221</ref> which he called encounter groups, after the existential tradition of an authentic [[Encounter (psychology)|encounter]] between people.<ref>I. Yalom, ''Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy'' (2005) p. 530</ref>

Other leaders in the development of encounter groups, including [[Will Schutz]], worked at the [[Esalen Institute]] in [[Big Sur]], [[California]]. Schutz himself stressed how "the terms 'T-group' (T for training) and 'sensitivity training group' are commonly used...synonymously with 'encounter group'".<ref>William Schutz, ''Joy'' (Penguin 1973) p. 21</ref>

==Focus and legacy==
The focus of the sensitivity training group was on here-and-now interactions among the group members, and on their group experience;<ref>I. Yalom, ''Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy'' (2005) p. 526</ref> and worked by following the energy of the emerging issues in the group, and dramatising them in verbal or non-verbal ways.<ref>J. Rowan, ''Ordinary Ecstasy'' (2013) p. 110-1</ref>  An atmosphere of openness and honesty was encouraged throughout;<ref>William Schutz, ''Joy'' (Penguin 1973) p. 21</ref> and authenticity and [[self-actualization]] were prominent goals.<ref name=Gregory221 />

The heyday of the encounter groups were the sixties and seventies; thereafter nonverbal interaction was increasingly discouraged, in favour of a more modest emphasis upon following group processes as they emerged.<ref>S. Mailick, ''Learning Theory in the Practice of Management Development'' (1998) p. 41</ref> The techniques of T-Groups and Encounter Groups have merged and divided and splintered into more specialized topics, arguably seeking to promote sensitivity to others perceived as different, and seemingly losing some of their original focus on self-exploration as a means to understanding and improving relations with others in a more general sense.{{Citation needed|date=June 2017}}

===Research===
Another legacy of sensitivity training, prompted in part by controversy, has been a new rigour in research methods for the study of group work, and of its outcomes.<ref>I. Yalom, ''Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy'' (2005) p. 525-6</ref>

==In media==
21stC sensitivity training was mocked on TV in 2008 by the program ''[[Penn & Teller: Bullshit!]]''<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1272785/ Sensitivity Training]</ref>

==Criticisms==
{{See also|Psychotherapy#General critiques}}
Criticisms of modern sensitivity training have repeatedly surfaced over the decades.

*Therapists early expressed reservations about the encounter group both from within and without the movement. Thus Carl Rogers expressed concerns about its potential to license intrusive, bullying behaviour, concluding that members needed a solid ego to profit from it.<ref>S. S. Fehr, ''Introduction to Group Therapies'' (2003) p. 24-5</ref>  [[Eric Berne]] similarly pointed to the danger of the group only providing a series of unassimilated insights functioning as insults, quipping that "One definition of a sensitivity group is that it is a place where sensitive people go to have their feelings hurt".<ref>E. Berne, ''A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis'' (Penguin 1976) p. 296</ref>
*Right-wing critic and [[conspiracy theorist]] [[G. Edward Griffin]], faced with the movement's more radical claims to promote social change, argued that sensitivity training involves the unethical use of psychological techniques with groups that come close to [[brainwashing]].<ref>[http://www.cosmolearning.com/documentaries/seduction-of-a-generation-sensitivity-training-as-brainwashing-1969/ Seduction of a Generation (1969)]</ref>
*Research analysis of the results of encounter groups revealed significant effects for both good and bad: where some 30% of participants found lasting benefit, 8% experienced equally lasting negative results.<ref>I. Yalom, ''Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy'' (2005) p. 536</ref>

==See also==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=30em|
*[[Attack therapy]]
*[[Diversity training]]
*[[Eric Trist]]
*[[Gregory Bateson]]
*[[Groupthink]]
*[[J.L. Moreno]]
*[[John Rawlings Rees]]
*[[Quaesitor]]
*[[Synergy]]
*[[William Sargant]]
}}

==References==
{{Reflist|2|}}

==External links==
* [http://www.mhhe.com/cls/psy/ch14/encount.mhtml Encounter Groups]

{{Psychotherapy}}

[[Category:Existential therapy]]
[[Category:Group psychotherapy]]
[[Category:Multiculturalism]]
[[Category:Training]]