article three:

Name of article:

INFLUENCE OF THE LEADER ON THE ACTIVITY
LEVEL OF THERAPY GROUPS*


Name of journal:
Social Psychology

Name of author(s):

ROBERT  E. BECKER, MARTIN HARROW, BORIS  M . ASTRACHAN,
THOMAS DETRE, AND JAMES  C. MILLER


When and how did you locate this article?
Murphy Library Data Base, at my house, December 9 2012

Two paragraph synopsis of what you learned in this article:
The point of the article was to view the effects of a group led by a superior figure, such as a therapist. While reading the article, I quickly realized that the role of a therapist creates the feelings of insecurity, self conscience, and the feeling of being judged. I also would like to note that groups that are lead, have much less talking occurring, and there is much less spontaneous  conversations being created.

The articles makes the point that the "leader" should be playing the role of the "major behavioral leader;" basically stating that the leader should only intervene when the effectiveness of the group decreases. This actually makes a lot of sense for the leader to kind of sit back and observe. I also learned that as the session progresses, spontaneity activities and more talking occurs due to either the increase of comfort or the sense of urge to rush to get through all of the activities and to reach the objective.

How will you apply this knowledge to your professional development?
I now know that I will have to avoid intervening too much. I will have to learn to sit back and listen more than talk and intervene.

Would you recommend this article for other TR students?  Why or why not?
Yes, even though I wasn't happy that the role of the therapists seemed to be degraded, I think that it gave some really good advice to not talk to much, and to let the participants naturally become more involved.