Sensitivity training

MeSH| 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.

## Contents

* 1 Origins
* 2 Focus and legacy
* 2.1 Research
* 3 In media
* 4 Criticisms
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

## Origins

Kurt Lewin laid the foundations for sensitivity training in a series of workshops he organised in 1946, using his field theory as the conceptual background.[1] 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-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".[2] 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,[3] which he called encounter groups, after the existential tradition of an authentic encounter between people.[4]

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'".[5]

## 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;[6] and worked by following the energy of the emerging issues in the group, and dramatising them in verbal or non-verbal ways.[7] An atmosphere of openness and honesty was encouraged throughout;[8] and authenticity and self-actualization were prominent goals.[9]

The heyday of the encounter groups was the Sixties and Seventies: thereafter nonverbal interaction was increasingly discouraged, in favour of a more modest emphasis upon following group processes as they emerged.[10] 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]

### 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.[11]

## In media

21stC sensitivity training was mocked on TV in 2008 by the program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!.[12]

## Criticisms

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.[13] 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".[14]
* 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.[15]
* 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.[16]

## See also

* Attack therapy
* Diversity training
* Eric Trist
* Gregory Bateson
* Groupthink
* J.L. Moreno
* John Rawlings Rees
* Quaesitor
* Synergy
* William Sargant

## References

1. ↑ K. Back, Beyond Words(1987) p.97. Lewin's work also influenced the Tavistock Clinic, ibid p. 4
2. ↑ C. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961) p. 334
3. ↑ R. Gregory ed., The Oxford Companion to the Mind (Oxford 1987) p.221
4. ↑ I. Yalom, Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy (2005) p. 530
5. ↑ William Schutz, Joy (Penguin 1973) p. 21
6. ↑ I. Yalom, Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy (2005) p. 526
7. ↑ J. Rowan, Ordinary Ecstasy (2013) p. 110-1
8. ↑ William Schutz, Joy (Penguin 1973) p. 21
9. ↑ R. Gregory ed., The Oxford Companion to the Mind (Oxford 1987) p.221
10. ↑ S. Mailick, Learning Theory in the Practice of Management Development (1998) p. 41
11. ↑ I. Yalom, Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy (2005) p. 525-6
12. ↑ Sensitivity Training
13. ↑ S. S. Fehr, Introduction to Group Therapies (2003) p. 24-5
14. ↑ E. Berne, A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (Penguin 1976) p. 296
15. ↑ Seduction of a Generation (1969)
16. ↑ I. Yalom, Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy (2005) p. 536

## External links

* Encounter Groups

* v
* t
* e

Psychotherapy (list)

Schools|

| Psychodynamic|

* Psychoanalysis
* Adlerian therapy
* Analytical therapy
* Mentalization-based treatment
* Transference focused psychotherapy

|

Cognitive and
behavioral|

* Clinical behavior analysis
* Acceptance and commitment therapy
* Functional analytic psychotherapy
* Cognitive behavioral therapy
* Cognitive therapy
* Dialectical behavior therapy
* Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
* Rational emotive behavior therapy

Humanistic|

* Emotionally focused therapy
* Existential therapy
* Focusing
* Gestalt therapy
* Logotherapy
* Person-centered therapy

Other|

* Art therapy
* Dance therapy
* Feminist therapy
* Music therapy
* Narrative therapy
* Play therapy
* Reality therapy
* Systemic therapy
* Transactional analysis
* List

Integrative|

* Eclectic psychotherapy
* Integrative psychotherapy
* Multimodal therapy
* Transtheoretical model

Approaches|

* Brief psychotherapy
* Counseling
* Online counseling
* Residential treatment
* Self-help
* Support groups

Research|

* Clinical formulation
* Clinical pluralism
* Common factors theory
* Discontinuation
* History
* Practitioner–scholar model

Techniques|

| Behaviour therapy|

* Aversion therapy
* Chaining
* Contingency management
* Shaping
* Stimulus control
* Token economy
* Counterconditioning
* Desensitization/Exposure therapy
* Systematic desensitization

|

Other individual therapy|

* Autogenic training
* Biofeedback
* Cognitive restructuring
* Emotion regulation
* Free association
* Homework
* Hypnotherapy
* Modeling

Group psychotherapy|

* Co-therapy
* Couples therapy
* Family therapy
* Psychodrama
* Sensitivity training

People|

* Philippe Pinel (1745–1826)
* Josef Breuer (1842–1925)
* Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
* Pierre Janet (1859–1947)
* Alfred Adler (1870–1937)
* Sándor Ferenczi (1873–1933)
* Carl Jung (1875–1961)
* Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966)
* Melanie Klein (1882–1960)
* Otto Rank (1884–1939)
* Karen Horney (1885–1952)
* Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949)
* Fritz Perls (1893–1970)
* Anna Freud (1895–1982)
* Donald Winnicott (1896–1971)
* Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957)
* Milton H. Erickson (1901–1980)
* Jacques Lacan (1901–1981)
* Erik Erikson (1902–1994)
* Carl Rogers (1902–1987)
* Viktor Frankl (1905–1997)
* George Kelly (1905–1967)
* Rollo May (1909–1994)
* Virginia Axline (1911–1988)
* Carl Whitaker (1912–1995)
* Albert Ellis (1913–2007)
* James Bugental (1915–2008)
* Joseph Wolpe (1915–1997)
* Virginia Satir (1916–1988)
* Aaron T. Beck (b. 1921)
* Salvador Minuchin (1921–2017)
* Hans Herrman Strupp (1921–2006)
* Paul Watzlawick (1921–2007)
* Haim Ginott (1922–1973)
* Ogden Lindsley (1922–2004)
* Arthur Janov (1924–2017)
* Eugene Gendlin (1926–2017)
* R. D. Laing (1927–1989)
* Jean Baker Miller (1927–2006)
* Otto F. Kernberg (b. 1928)
* Nathan Azrin (1930–2013)
* Irvin D. Yalom (b. 1931)
* Arnold Lazarus (1932–2013)
* Lorna Smith Benjamin (b. 1934)
* Marsha M. Linehan (b. 1943)
* Vittorio Guidano (1944–1999)
* Les Greenberg (b. 1945)
* William R. Miller (b. 1947)
* Steven C. Hayes (b. 1948)
* Michael White (1948–2008)
* Jeffrey Young (b. 1950)
* Peter Fonagy (b. 1952)

Associations|

* Association for the Advancement of Psychotherapy
* Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback
* Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies
* Association for Behavior Analysis International
* European Association for Psychotherapy
* Society for Psychotherapy Research
* World Council for Psychotherapy

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