Developing the Group Mind Through Functional Subgrouping: Linking Systems-Centered Training (SCT) and Interpersonal Neurobiology

Abstract

Estimated Time to Complete this Activity: 90 minutes. Learning ObjectivesThe reader will be able to: 1. Identify key findings of IPNB that support the use of group therapy 2. Describe how functional subgrouping can be used to develop the group mind 3. Apply systems-centered thinking with IPNB as a tool for group development ABSTRACTThis article introduces the systems-centered concept of the "group mind" by linking systems-centered thinking and interpersonal neurobiology, building on Siegel's definition of mind as the process of regulating the flow of energy and information. Functional subgrouping, the systems-centered group method for resolving conflicts, discriminates and integrates the flow of energy and information within and between group members, subgroups, and the group-as-a-whole, thus potentiating survival, development, and transformation. This article uses the interpersonal neurobiological framework to discuss functional subgrouping as a tool for developing the group mind: considering how functional subgrouping facilitates emotional regulation, creates a secure relational context, and potentiates neural integration.

The Group in the Individual

“…Group therapists Gantt and Agazarian (2010) train their clients to ask “Anyone else?” when they are finished speaking: “You let the others know that you are finished and that you want to be joined” (p. 525). My experience is that this can be helpful in groups I work with as well.…”

“…These experiments have, however, made me reluctant to use personal script analysis for understanding and explaining human behavior in groups. Gantt and Agazarian (2010), in referring to these experiments, wrote how easily groups become closed minded as group norms dominate the individual: ''There is the potential for groups to become mind-numbing'' (p. 522). There seem to be many scripts from organizations and groups of which an individual is part that constitute a threat to the person's autonomous thinking, feeling, and behaving.…”

Response to Jacinta Kent’s ‘The Dynamic Foundation: Harnessing Difference within the Matrix’

“…Nowadays we know better that and how social contact develops and shapes our brains and our whole biological/physiological make-up (Gantt and Agazarian, 2010; Stern, 1985). From the very beginning our biology is social and vice versa.…”