T-Group or Sensitivity Training

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SENSITIVITY TRAINING / T-GROUP

This programme utilizes experience based learning and self-analytical group processes (T-Group) as its main training method. In a group, around 8 to 12 participants assemble together and work with a facilitator to discover their strengths, interpersonal relationships, participation in the group and how they are perceived by others etc.

In this T-Group setting, the group evolves like a laboratory. The members act as resource to each other facilitating mutual learning through experiencing, reflecting, hypothesizing, experimenting and conceptualizing rather than through lectures.

  • Objectives

    ✓ Become aware of one’s own patterns of behaviour

    ✓ Become aware of the impact of one’s behaviour on others and vice versa

    ✓ Improve one’s effectiveness in interpersonal interactions so as to derive greater satisfaction from them

    ✓ Discover one’s dormant potential to live more effectively and meaningfully

    ✓ Provide the participants an opportunity to identify and work on issues critical to their own growth and effectiveness

    This training methodology is very practical and widely used in organisations in India and abroad for training all levels of executives.

  • Benefits of Sensitivity Training or T-Group

    Sensitivity training provides following opportunities for personal and group growth:

    ✓ It helps improve the quality of participation in diverse human affairs, and this requires creative integration of “inner needs” of individual and “outer demands” of environment.

    ✓ Understandings and skills of participation can be learned validly only through processes of participation in which the learner is involved. Wherein participants discover and diagnose the disintegrities in their patterns of participation. Further, help is provided in inventing and testing more integrating and less crippling patterns of response leading to growth both in personal autonomy and social effectiveness.

    ✓ Increased awareness of and sensitivity to emotional reactions and expressions in self. Without such awareness, a human being’s goals, values and actions become incongruent with his reality as a total person.

    ✓ Individuals acquire greater skill to perceive and to learn from the consequences of his / her actions through attention to feelings, his / her own and others.

    ✓ One gets clarification and development of personal values and goals consonant with a democratic and scientific approach to problems of social and personal decision and action.

    ✓ It focuses on development of behavioural skills to support better integration of intentions and actions. Because, the learning of concepts, setting of goals, the clarifications of values, and even the achievement of valid insight into self are sometimes far ahead of the performance skills necessary to actual expression.

    ✓ Since this learning process happens in a group setting, Laboratory also helps in enhancing the team skills of members.

    ✓ And the final objective is learning how to learn. It directs individual’s efforts towards achieving a self identity which is active, reflective, realistically optimistic, and collaborative.

    ✓ In sum, the desired direction of learning and change is towards a more integrative and adaptive interconnection of values, concepts, feelings, perceptions, strategies and skills.

  • Salient Behavioural Change Processes at Self level in a T Group

    Title of the Paper: Salient Behavioural Change Processes at Self level in a T Group

    Name of Author: Pradeep Prakash, our Chief Consultant

    Section and the theme of the Paper: Impact of T-Group (Change processes through T-Groups)

    Text of the Abstract: (Not more than 300 words)

    The theme is rich and vast and this paper shares the processes of behavioual change at Individual Self level.

    I have attempted to make this complex subject simple without making it simplistic.

    In the section on individual Behavioural Change, following processes are explored:

    1. How an individual copes with the sharing of impact of other members on his/her behaviour?
    2. What are coping style consequences for the change in one’s behaviour?
    3. What kind of processing by individual leads to change and what blocks change?
    4. How group climate and group members’ behaviour influences the individual change process?
    5. What are some of the unconscious individual change processes?



    Behaviour change at individual, group, communities and societies is a fascinating field of human study. In this paper I am going to cover a very small yet significant aspect of the same. Idea is to make the reader understand in a very simple way the dynamics of change process in an individual as it occurs in a T group setting of learning without making the subject simplistic.

    Individual Behavioural Change in T Group Setting:

    In T group setting, group of 10-12 persons share the impact of each others behaviour to one another as it occurs in the ‘here and now’. From the feedback inherent in the impact shared by other group members on one’s behaviour (which includes statements, actions, non verbal gestures and all that), one is supposed to learn and make changes in one’s behaviour. The assumption is that if the protagonist does not like the impact shared by others about one’s behaviour, one will change the behaviour for the kind of impact one wants.

    Also significant in this behavioural change by individual is the role of culture of the group that members create in the unstructured situation provided in T Group setting. In this setting the facilitator is neither the leader nor sets any agenda for the group members but only facilitates learning as and when the opportunity occurs for the same. Hence the culture created is the responsibility of the group members together and not just the facilitator.

    I have used the terms ‘here and now’, culture, unstructured etc which have their significance and meaning which I will explain shortly.

    However, one most important term that I want to introduce is ‘behavioral process’. Behavioural process is the process of transformation of feeling from one feeling to another. For instance the feeling of hurt gets transformed into anger through blaming and creates some different feeling in the person being blamed. Who in turn reacts and the interpersonal behavioural process starts where one person’s feeling produce some feelings in another and so on. The core point is that feeling keeps on transforming from one into another and to learn to understand and utilize this alchemic process of transformation is understanding behavioural process.

    How behavior change is related to transformation of feelings? Behaviour change involves processing the same feeling differently. The assumption rather fact behind this is that outer behaviour is the manifestation of feelings experienced within. It will become clear with one example.

    In the group, when I receive a negative feedback about how I sit and about my funny gestures, I feel hurt. I immediately become angry with the person who tells me so. The behavioural process is I am hurt and my hurt gets transformed into anger towards the person who has hurt me ( Hurt transformed into Anger- Process), as per my understanding. Now the new behaviour which I learn in T group setting could be that improvement will happen by not blaming others for feedback but by taking responsibility. In sum, feel hurt at feedback (impact shared by others) but if I do not want this hurt repeatedly from others feedback (consequences of my behaviour) in future on my gestures, improve my sitting postures and gestures (change for better consequences). In this I learn to transform my ‘hurt’ into ‘motivational energy’ to learn new and improved behaviour. The processing of hurt has been changed towards motivational energy rather than into anger as was done before learning. Unless this learning to transform hurt into changed behaviour happens, behaviour will not change; I will keep getting angry towards people for telling me my gestures are unbecoming.

    In the above example, many important issues have been covered, namely:

    1. The above behaviour change involves processing feelings differently (preferably more functionally)
    2. The T group process of behaviour change involves these steps:
     a. Behaviour of the person as experienced by others (Stimulus)
     b. Impact of others shared to the person about his behaviour- (Consequences)
     c. Feelings generated in person on understanding the impact of others about one’s behaviour (Consequences as experienced by person)
     d. Processing of the feelings in old/ usual ways (learning opportunity)
     e. Facilitation of learning by the group and facilitator (Learning to see the consequences of one’s actions and taking responsibility and exploring options of new behaviour)
     f. Learning by individual to process the feeling generated by feedback in a more functional way (Learning)
     g. Changed behaviour, preferably more functional (Experimenting with New Behaviour)
     h. Establishment of new, changed behaviour through reinforcement of better impact on others (Reinforcement of Changed Behaviour)
    3. The processing of feelings is live, in the ‘here and now’. Hence learning to process the feelings differently for new behaviour is a skill learnt only with the live, ‘here and now’ feelings and not stale recall of feelings at cognitive level.
    4. All the steps in changing behaviour are important but the critical step is learning to take responsibility for the consequences of one’s behaviour.

    The step 4 is now discussed in greater details here. This brings me to my two important process discoveries which I have named as:

    1. Pradeep’s Cycle of Suffering (PCOS), and
    2. Pradeep’s Spiral of Liberation(PSOL)

    In the T group, members are continually involved in sharing the impact of each others behaviour(Step b above). Sometimes the impact produces pleasant feelings and at other times uncomfortable feelings (step c above). When the feelings generated after the impact are ‘unpleasant’ like discomfort, pain, hurt, sense of loss and betrayal, loneliness, exclusion, etc the real difficulty starts. One cannot remain in ‘unpleasant’ state for long. The natural instinct is to escape as early as possible. In the billions of years that man has been experiencing these feelings, the man has become expert in running away from these feelings.

    What are these mechanisms used by man to escape since his arrival on earth? There are basically two styles for freeing oneself from these unpleasant feelings. The two stages involved in these two styles are very interesting. In the most frequently used style or methodology to escape, the first stage is very comfortable but later stage is very painful. In the second style, the first stage is uncomfortable but later stage is very joyful. The First Style is called technically the defense mechanisms. In this without changing the ground realities causing the uncomfortable impact from others, one is able to escape the painful feelings by using some defensive process. These processes mostly happen without the person being aware of them, i.e. unconsciously for that person while others will become aware of these defenses. There are many defense mechanisms. Few of them I am listing here for ready reference: Generalization, Rationalization, Denial, Postponement/ Procrastination, Suppression, Aggression, Defensive Humour, Quick Acceptance, Reaction Formation, Projection, Displacement, Isolation of Affect or intellectualization, Regression, Sublimation, Selective Perception, Withdrawal, Pairing in a group setting, Flight, Dependence etc. Explaining them is beyond the scope of this article and can be easily learnt from Google search sites.

    Let me elaborate on the Cycle of suffering one gets trapped in when one uses the Defense Mechanisms to run away from unpleasant feelings without bringing any change in the ground reality stimulus from oneself that is generating those feelings. Following steps in this process occur:

    1. Unpleasant feelings experienced in one after listening to the impact from others in the T group
    2. Since one can’t stay in the unpleasant state, one quickly and unconsciously use some of the defense mechanisms listed above and get out of the unpleasant feelings and restore one’s sense of well being
    3. One has done nothing to change the stimulus in the form of one’s behaviour which created that impact because situation or others are responsible (as implied in defense mechanisms)
    4. One continues to behave the old way leading to repeated negative impact from others
    5. The whole process from step 1 to step 4 is repeated forever afterwards as long as one uses step 2 above. In sum, One is caught in cycle of suffering as depicted below, forever. The painful consequences do not leave one, unfortunately. The price of comfort One gets by running away from unpleasant feedback and not changing one’s behaviour that is responsible for the pain.

    PCOS is depicted below:
    Graph of Pradeep's Cycle of Suffering

    Now, the second style of response occurs when in Step 2 above one does not run away or escape from the unpleasant feelings. Rather one experiences the pain and instead of blaming others for this pain one takes responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions. Since one does not want to get the same consequences again, this pain becomes motivational energy to modify one’s behaviour so that desirable consequences are generated. Here instead of running away from pain by using defense mechanisms one has utilized the pain energy for growth and learning. Fortunately and interestingly, the pain too vanishes in this case by converting into motivational energy. There is an alchemy of feelings. The moment one takes responsibility for the hurt/pain, it gets transformed into energy for growth and transformation This leads to better relationships with the feedback givers. It is a win-win proposition for all the parties. This is represented as Pradeep’s Spiral of Liberation as depicted below:



    Graph of Pradeep's Spiral of Liberation

    Why it is so tempting to blame the external factors be they boss, parents, children, situation or whatever? Because it is so comfortable to lay the blame on others’ shoulders. But this comfort is there only for the short term, because the problem does not end by blaming others or situation. Neither others nor situations change when we blame them leading to status quo. This means we remain in trouble as long as the others are not changing. Secondly, it is very difficult to change others, they are not in our control. In the long term therefore blaming becomes much more uncomfortable, actually suffering. No wonder most of the people stay in suffering sometimes their whole lives by disempowering thus.

    Imagine, nature has created this beautiful trap for humans. It offers a tempting and easy shortcut to comfort in the form of defensive behaviour, but the same becomes hell in the long term as one never gets out of the painful consequences. Based on this process, one may say, that nature wants humans to grow through taking responsibility! I personally believe that if there is pain in my life then there is bound to be something in me where I need to work and grow. Pain becomes a diagnostic tool!

    In a T group setting another interesting process occurs in the whole group when one of the member is in defensive mode. The interpersonal process between the feedback/ impact giver and defensive member becomes open looped and does not close. Reason is the feedback giver does not feel that he/she is being received and understood by the receiver. So he/she keeps on giving arguments one way or the other and the receiver keeps on defending his/her stance every time. While others are seeing this some one from the group gets tempted to try and reach out in a different way to the protagonist. He/she too gets in the same open loop. Then some one else gets hooked and tries to reach. Same fate awaits him/her too. When this process is let loose in the group, there is lot of energy but no success. It is a kind of dissonance ripple that spreads from the initiator to other members one by one. This is a very common phenomenon in the group settings leading to variety of interpersonal conflicts as well. I have christened this phenomenon as The Dissonance Ripple.

    Whenever, group gets hooked in ‘The Dissonance Ripple’, one is sure to see the protagonist in a defensive mode.

    One very important message is contained in above. Humans will not change merely by cognitive understanding of their behaviour’s consequence. Unless they experience the consequences live and learn to process the generated unpleasant feelings in a responsible manner, as described above, they will hardly change. Hence, behavioural training programme will not be able to influence change in behaviour unless it facilitates participants to process live feelings in a more functional way! No wonder, despite all the great scriptures and preachers preaching the good way of life since centuries, people continue to live in their set old ways.

    It also makes it clear why in T Group setting ‘here and now’ and touching feelings are the core of the facilitation. And these are skills and not mere cognitive understandings. The skill of experiencing feelings, naming them and understanding the process of their serial transformation from one to another and so on, along with resultant change in behaviour. So a process trainer is one who is at its fundamental level, skillful in experiencing this process of transformation of feelings in self and others and its result in variety of behaviours at all levels. Of course there are many others skills required for a T Group facilitator, besides this fundamental one!

    Moreover, especially in T group one gets to change behaviour for the following opportunities provided in the group:

    1. Facilitated to see the consequences of one’s behaviour through impact sharing
    2. To experience, name and process feelings in the ‘here and now’ in usual and also new ways
    3. Opportunities to own and take responsibility for one’s feelings and consequences of actions/ behaviours
    4. To experiment with new behaviour in a safe setting and seeing the changed consequences for self and others in a Lab setting
    5. Reinforcement in the form of group members’ positive impact

    How group climate and group members’ behaviour influences the individual change process?

    In which kind of group climate one is able to own one’s drawbacks? Or in what kind of group climate one is encouraged to be defensive?

    The climate where one can be truly what one is and is free trusting to reveal even the deepest vulnerabilities would be an ideal one. One does not feel like pretending or masking in such a climate. Is it possible to create this climate in a T group setting where strangers are meeting for six days or 40 hours? Well, in my experience the group goes through many ups and downs and at least one cycle of Inclusion, Control and Affection is required before members, who are strangers at the beginning, start opening up their vulnerabilities. And it takes about three days or 21-24 hours to complete one cycle in general, as per my facilitation style based experience. Different facilitators may take different times in different stages such as Inclusion, Control and Affection depending on their styles. During the second cycle Affection stage the group is able to share much more and members tend to become much less defensive and more open to feedback and change. This process was faster in PDP Phase-A first week facilitation experience of mine where even after first cycle, the group members developed huge trust and good visible shifts in behaviour were seen.

    Group members here have great responsibility to create the facilitative environment where member does not have to be defensive and is open to receive feedback and make shifts. Especially they learn to use non-judgmental language that encourages openness to receive by others. The OCTAPACE (Openness, Collaboration, Trust, Authenticity, Procativity, Autonomy, Confrontation and Experimentation) are important dimensions of this group climate to develop which group members have to take risks and move further on these. Naturally, the more the facilitative group climate the greater chance of learning there is!

    What are some of the unconscious individual change processes?

    Most of the members are not aware in Basic or First T Group lab that group is developing through various stages and the same is responsible for their opening up and shifts in behaviours. Participants are creating a new group, but facilitator is facilitating creation of a group culture with values of OCTAPACE. These members unconsciously introject these values and experiment with new behaviours based on these values. This way they learn the value of these values to be incorporated in their own lives! The biggest learning for me in T Group experiencing is that you cannot hide who you are and it is a best policy to be authentic. Even very simple persons in my experience get to know whether the other person is behaving authentically or faking. Similarly the opportunity for experimenting, confronting and so on are internalized by seeing the useful consequences of the same. However, there are many cases where when these members go back to their own organizations they once again introject the value system of the culture there. OCTAPACE values becomes permanent or fully internalized in very few group members. This is my experience based on my interactions with some professional members too. Not all professional members have fully internalized these ISABS Group values. Reasons are very simple. They have their separate identities besides being an ISABS professional members and they identify more with other groups/ organizations than with ISABS.

    From above, I conclude that changes due to group culture and values are much less enduring than changes that occur through learning to process feelings differently.

    In sum, I would say that it is T Group’s responsibility to create a safe environment where individuals can own their dysfunctional behaviours and learn to become functional by processing feelings as well actions/ behaviours in a more responsible manner.

    Lastly, I have discovered a beautiful paradox of life which I call the ‘The Paradox of Simplicity’. It is, to keep things simple for others to understand, one has to have a complex understanding of the subject. Similarly if applied to everyday living, to live a simple life one has to have a deep understanding of life. Superficial understanding creates complexity in living. I hope I have been able to make this subject simple for you to understand through this paper.