Tips for Assessing A Group

 

Positive Characterizes found in Healthy Groups

 

• There is flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of the attendees.
• All members are encouraged (but not pressured) to participate, but not to dominate.
• The sharing is at a personal level.
• People attend regularly and are committed to their healing.
• Group members are open to self-evaluation of the process and how the group is working.
• The group has clarity of purpose.
• Sexual or emotional exploitation is not accepted as part of the norm.
• Group members coalesce to protect the group from exploitation or abuse of its members within the group.
• People are regarded as whole individuals.
• People are not coerced into staying if they desire to leave.
• There is a defined process or norm for dealing with conflict.
• The group has a sense of humor about itself.
• The group does not stay frozen in form.

 

 

Negative or Limiting Characteristics found in Unhealthy Groups:

 

• The Group discourages or blocks outside involvement.
• The group limits or discourages access to reading materials or other forms of personal growth.
• Expression of dissension is punished, squelched or strongly discouraged.
• The group becomes grandiose in its self-definition – “Ours is the only way”.
• People get locked into stereotyped roles.
• The group becomes paranoid about outsiders or those who question the norm.
• People talk like robots.
• In-group jargon predominates in conversations.
• The group exerts pressure on people to stay.
• People use the group for sexual needs.
• The group is unable to reflect on itself, its history, or its values from a broad perspective.

 

From the book Many Roads, One Journey by Charlotte Kasl.  A more detailed discussion is available on pages 292 – 297 of the paperback edition.

 

Also helpful is the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (version 2.6).  This is found at http://www.witchvox.com/basics/cultaware.html.