Group Process

At the start of the first year, each student will be assigned to a Small Group Process section. The students assigned to each small group section often maintain the same group composition with the same group leader for the entire three years of the program. In addition to small group process that happens every semester, in the spring semester of the first and second years students participate in Large Group Process classes.

The general purpose of the small and large group process classes is to give students a place to discuss issues and feelings that arise for them as they progress through the program and to serve as an experiential laboratory for group process and group leadership. In these classes, students develop mindfulness-awareness of the present moment in the context of group, develop mindfulness of speech, learn to articulate inner experience and give and receive feedback in a skillful way, as well as learn basic principles of group dynamics as preparation for leading groups.

Our program has gained a national reputation for training group leaders. Almost all of our group process leaders have been long-time, highly regarded presenters at the American Group Psychotherapy Association annual meeting. The Buddhism-Informed Contemplative Counseling program always sends a large contingent of students to the conference who continually impress the senior membership with their sophistication, presence and ability to engage in here-and-now interaction in the group context.