Have you ever wondered why a colleague displayed a reaction that seemed completely disproportionate to the situation, or indeed, their usual behaviour? Or have you ever reacted to a situation in a way you wished you hadn’t?

I recently spent a weekend on an intensive 2 day workshop entitled ‘Group Dynamics’, led by Tamara Alferoff at the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education. It forms part of a 1 year Foundation in Counselling and Psychotherapy, taking place in a large, peaceful, Victorian building overlooking Little Venice in London.

During the weekend, in which cynical financial traders, airy-yummy mummies, and muscular tree surgeons all rubbed shoulders, there were tears, dramas and a bonding that was natural, deep, and very unforced in this disparate group.

What roles do we play in a group, and why?

We began by examining the typical roles that make up a group. What roles could we identify in our group? ‘The Prankster?’, ‘The Sceptic?’, or ‘The Mother’ perhaps? We looked at what roles we each felt that we filled in a group setting. We examined what motivates this behaviour when we are part of a group, and we looked at our own personal history to see how that role might have developed.

How do we view our group?

Our focus was then drawn to how we viewed our group as an entity. Furnished with coloured pens, glitter and paper, we were asked to draw a picture of ‘the group’ as we perceived it. We then formed small teams, and shared the results of our creative endeavours with each other.

What we didn’t know was, this was a clever trick played by our teacher, Tamara. When we arrived the next morning we had to explain the picture in the first person. In short, we were being asked to describe the picture as representing ourselves, rather than the group. This led to stumbling responses, and one point-blank refusal. But what we learnt (apart from that we had walked into a cunning trap), was that we had all, quite accurately, summed up a deep part of ourselves, and then projected this image onto how we viewed the group.

This revealing bombshell introduced us to the idea of how powerfully we can ‘project’ our feelings, thoughts, fears and hopes onto others, without even being conscious of it.

Our ‘Family Tableaux’.

The next stage of our journey involved hand picking colleagues from our large group to play the roles of our family members. The family member could be dead or alive, young or old. They were asked to stand on an impromptu ‘stage’, and placed in a position that represented the position they hold in our mind’s eye. So if a Father was domineering, he might have been placed standing on a chair, looming over the proceedings. If a Mother was distant, she might have been asked to stare out of the window. This tableaux was added to until all of the relevant family was present.

All of the ‘actors’ were then asked to vocalise how they felt in these positions, purely from their perspective.

I remember watching ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, and Gregory Peck, playing the part of ‘Atticus Finch’, tells his young son “If you just learn a single trick, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

This basic truism is demonstrated in this exercise. As members of our group set up their Family Tableaux, they heard the points of view that each of their family members might have had. In addition, their own feelings were validated, as they heard the actor playing them on stage, expressing emotions, unprompted, that they themselves had often felt when in that position.

The combination of insight into their family members perspective, as well as validation of their own experience and emotion, led to some profoundly deep, personal realisations.

Now to the nitty gritty – how can all this help us?

It sounds like a cliche to say that people reminding us of our family members can provoke such intense behaviour and responses, but it does.

This wasn’t a scientific study, rather an experiential one. As individuals in a group we found that we were both attracted, and repelled by characteristics that reminded us of the behaviour of family members that had played important parts of our early lives.

It appears that our behaviour, as well as being heavily influenced by our genes and socialisation, is also inherently driven by our family backgrounds.

For myself, I was drawn to pick ‘family members’ from my group that were two people in the group who had antagonised me on earlier workshops. It was only then I realised why I had become so easily affected by these folk. They had stirred emotion in me that went back many years. And despite my supposed ‘emotional intelligence and awareness’, I hadn’t even seen it.

What that allowed me to do was to put the antagonism, and therefore the relationship, in perspective. Rather than personalising it, I was able to create a buffer zone, which de-intensified the emotions, and allowed me to see that perhaps I also reminded my colleagues of someone they had had difficulties with in their past, and they too were clouded by unexpectedly irascible feelings.

Perhaps though, I was just downright irritating to them. I guess I’ll never know!

Using the lessons of our past.

It’s easy to say that simple ‘personal chemistry’ is responsible for not getting along with others, and of course there’s much truth in that. But it’s certainly not the whole truth, and without acknowledging the full picture we can never understand, develop and maximise our opportunities and potential.

Yes, we should live in the present moment, but by neglecting to put our personal landscapes into a historical perspective, we miss the chance of learning from the patterns of our past, and therefore compromise our chance of a peaceful future.

©Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.