Yesterday I was away from the group for most of the day.  I started as usual - got up, wrote, met others, breakfast.  Then we came together briefly as the full 37 standing in a big circle outside the house on the gravel.  OK, we had already been the full 37 having breakfast, but coming together in the big circle helped me (and probably many others) feel part of the bigger group.  The circle was used for practical housekeeping around timings during the day and other issues, but there also seemed to be another important function in physically creating the holding circle of the full group.

We'd agreed to have breakfast ½ hour earlier than usual at 8.30am, so having the circle for twenty minutes or so at 9.15am still allowed our small support groups of 4 to meet for well over an hour up to 11.00am.  We'd agreed then to have a tea break and run the groups of 12-13 from 11.15 to lunch at 1.30.  Then a post-lunch period which people use to walk, talk, play, rest, and also for optional special interest groups - with the themes being offered by various people who wanted a chance to explore various issues more deeply.  We were then to meet again as the full group at 4.30.

So yesterday was the second full day of the group and it went roaring along - like holidays where initially time moves slowly and then seems to accelerate.  Here the "train" of group memories seems to gather pace for me by this second day.  My sense has been that for all three of the mid-size groups of 12-13, the first day was at times quite a struggle - what are we here for?  Do I really emotionally trust these other people?  Do they like and accept me?  Is it safe to take risks and be vulnerable here?  Might I end up feeling rejected, humiliated or abandoned?  All of these seem totally sensible questions to me, and I think they need to feel answered on a gut, not just a head level.

Back in May I wrote about a peer Mixed Group I have been involved in for many years.  I explained how I'd been coming to this Mixed Group since 1991 and how the group had evolved and budded off both a Men's Group and Women's Group.  I talked about the origins and purpose of these groups and also why writing about my personal involvement in them seems relevant to this blog on stress, health & wellbeing.

Besides the Mixed Group in May, I have also come regularly to a Men's Group in November.  They are both just four days long and I've found them hugely precious over the years.  This autumn's Men's Group was at Wiston Lodge about an hour's drive south of Edinburgh and I took my Eee PC along to it to write a bit about my experience: 

This week's recent research post is a mixed bag of six studies covering the physiological & psychological changes triggered by being separated from one's partner, why similar levels of anxiety & interpersonal sensitivity can lead to social anxiety in some individuals and paranoia in others, how difficulty identifying feelings is associated with increased somatization, the frequency of burnout in family doctors around Europe, personality factors that predict a longer life, and how wrong the old saying is that "Sticks & stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"!  

“ To stand and stare, to watch the rising sun, fills me with such calm happiness, I am sure I have dwindled away too much time on inessentials. ” - Diana Gault (when dying of cancer)

Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible.     Dalai Lama 

“ The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. ” - Frederick Buechner

This section contains handouts and questionnaires about emotions, feelings & personality.  It seems helpful to understand emotions through an evolutionary perspective - we have emotions, to a large extent, because they had (and have) survival value.  We are the descendants of people with adaptive emotional systems that helped them stay alive and function well.  Typically unwelcome feelings that seem maladaptive are due to emotions that are firing off inappropriately.  As a rule of thumb, if an emotion is an appropriate reaction to a situation it can help us respond successfully.  If the emotion is inappropriate then it's likely to be more useful to work to change the emotional response - through therapy or other approaches. 

“

What does not kill me, makes me stronger.

” - Frederick Nietzsche

Here are a series of questionnaires and handouts on couples, sexuality, parenting, attachment, and abuse.  The first sequence of 20 or so handouts are from a two day workshop I run - for more details including downloadable copies of the slides, see the blog post "Psychotherapy with couples & other close relationships".  Listed below these are further relevant handouts & questionnaires.