Facilitating the highly bonded cohort: Should more be done to anticipate and reduce the potential for hyper-cohesiveness and deindividuation in therapy training cohorts in universities?

Abstract

Successfully facilitating learning for small therapy training programmes requires a special understanding of the psychological work of group processes. Students in therapy training spend almost every class together over two or more years. In these student groups, or cohorts, individuals manage themselves within a unique interpersonal and intragroup dynamic. Course instructors must develop their capacity to work effectively with this specific learning milieu. At the same time, the particular dynamics of the cohort context might not be understood by university management where increasingly few cohort contexts exist for students. Consequently, phenomena arising from the specialised nature of the group environment may not be well understood outside of the expertise of the course. In the first part of the paper, the international literature about learning in cohorts is reviewed. In the second part, this reflection is further developed to explore facilitation of a group that has some features of what might be described as negative cohesiveness, or what is described in family theory as enmeshment. Some consideration as to how to anticipate and off-set potential difficulties for groups in therapy training courses is also contributed.Facilitar exitosamente el proceso de aprendizaje en los programas de formación de terapeutas, requiere una especial comprensión del trabajo psicológico en los procesos de grupo. Los estudiantes en formación están juntos en casi todas las clases durante dos o más años; en estos grupos de estudiantes o cohortes, los individuos se manejan dentro de una dinámica única personal e intra-grupal. Los profesores del curso deben desarrollar su capacidad para trabajar en este ambiente específico de aprendizaje. Al mismo tiempo, la dinámica particular del contexto del cohorte, podría no ser comprendida en el ambiente universitario en el cual este contexto existe cada día menos; como consecuencia, puede ser que no se comprendan los *Email: Jane.Edwards@ul.ie fenómenos que se derivan de la naturaleza especial del ambiente de grupo fuera de la pericia del curso. En la primera parte de este artículo se revisa la literatura internacional acerca del proceso de aprendizaje en grupos. En la segunda parte, esta reflexión se desarrolla aún más para explorar la facilitación de un grupo cuyas características se pueden describir como cohesión negativa, o según la terapia de familia, como enredo. Se expresan igualmente algunas consideraciones acerca de cómo anticipar y disolver dificultades potenciales en los grupos de formación de terapeutas.Palabras clave: formación terapéutica; dificultades en la formación terapéutica; dificultades de los estudiantes de psicoterapia; dinámica de los cohortes Faciliter avec succès l'apprentissage au sein des petits programmes de formation thérapeutique nécessite une compréhension particulière du travail psychologique à l'oeuvre dans les processus groupaux. Les étudiants en formation thérapeutique passent presque tout leur temps scolaire ensemble pendant deux années ou plus. Dans ces...

Foreign experience of implementing music therapy: training, education and professional aspects.

“…However, sometimes it is difficult for group members to be in a small group. This is especially difficult for some group members when one or more students are not making progress (Edwards, 2014). There are usually group support processes within the course when difficulties arise.…”

Anti-oppressive pedagogy as an opportunity for consciousness raising in the music therapy profession: A critical disability studies perspective

“…There are a small number of seminal texts about music therapy pedagogy, which discuss the accepted approaches to educating trainees in the discipline (Bonde et al, 2019; Bruscia and Maranto, 1987; Bunt and Hoskyns, 2013; Edwards, 2014, 2016; Goodman, 2011, 2015; Hanser, 2016; Holden et al, 2020; Wheeler and Grocke, 2001; Wheeler et al, 2005; Wigram, 2009), with international variations and distinctions between undergraduate and postgraduate training noted (Bonde et al, 2019; Edwards, 2016). Karen Goodman’s (2011, 2015) texts are the most thorough and expansive on music therapy pedagogy, focusing on an American model (2011) and on international perspectives (2015), respectively.…”