The haphazard use of powerful group methods by untrained practitioners who lead a single demonstration or workshop can be dangerous. Such leaders seldom consider the damage that can be done either to the participants themselves or to those interacting with the participants after the workshop is over. (Author)

This is a report of changes on scales of the Personal Orientation Inventory following a marathon experience. Pretest and posttest results indicated changes in scores of an experimental group on those scales: Inner Direction, Existentiality, Feeling Reactivity, Spontaneity, Self Acceptance, Acceptance of Aggression, Capacity for Intimate Contact.…

The authors react to Chris Argyris' On the Future of Laboratory Education" by distilling and blending the modes of learning elaborated by Bruner. They apply Bruner's stages of understanding from the senses, to images, to symbols-- to laboratory training and praise the trainer who respects the complexity of individual growth. (Author)

Discusses three theories showing how aesthetic growth through participation in creative activity can exercise the kinds of abilities that make cross-cultural communication possible. These theories are (1) appreciation of individual differences; (2) growth from past experiences; and (3) understanding the feelings of others. (CT)

The Esalen Institute is located on a scenic portion of the California Coast, about 40 miles south of the Monterey Peninsula. The location contains natural cliffside hot springs from which mineral water flows into the sea. The springs were used in early times by the now extinct Esselen Indian tribe (from which Esalen derives its name) and this…

The data suggest that personal development can be encouraged and traditional training relationships rather radically realigned while maintaining the quality of patient care and enhancing the learning of medical knowledge. (Author/KE)

This case study is presented as a model for a sensitivity training program planned at Michigan State University. The goals, procedures, and criteria for conducting a program are illustrated. Based on the assumption that empathy is the mainspring of impression formation, and that empathy and evaluation interact, the goal is accurate evaluation.…

The author concludes that what is presently needed is for thoughtful, interested persons to continue an examined approach to the understanding and use of the intensive group experience. It has powerful implications for education, psychiatry, counseling, for everyday people. (Author)

From the data, it was concluded that the group experience facilitated personal growth for almost all participants and could be a valuable learning experience for anyone entering a helping profession. (Author)

In laboratory training, the systematic use of feedback as a learning mechanism, along with strategies to involve the participants, constitute major departures from more classic teaching-learning techniques. (EB)

When counselor educators carefully design a group-counseling course that focuses on personal growth, an increase in self awareness on the part of counselors-in-training can occur, in addition to the acquisition of new counseling skills. This article describes such a course. (Author/HMV)

The credibility of personal information selected by members of small groups to describe each other's characteristics and delivered to the members by the group leader without naming the source was studied. Positive feedback was rated by recipients as more credible, desirable, and as having more impact than negative feedback. (Author)

The major finding of the study is that, although encounter groups have an impact on their participants, what is carried away from the experience depends on particular characteristics of the group in interaction with what participants bring to it. (Author)

Discusses teaching methods which may be used to help students become more sensitive to life outside their own spheres and routines; illustrated. (SW)