posted 12 years ago
Yes I do.
It is not any more miracle than other techniques, but it has its specificity.
When you are in the specificity, it is great.
It was made for working in difficult French suburbs. You know, when even the postman do not want to deliver packets because of the danger.
Usually, people accept to try the process ONLY when they are in despair, and when they want to regain their own power.
Of course, it would work before that, but as long as we can manage, we prefer to do less efforts! Solving big problems is a big commitment.
It needs also that people cannot go away and HAVE TO go on living together though they do not want to.
Same in an enterprise, people HAVE TO work together.
After war life or racial issues are also a specificity for the TST.
Another specificity is that you must gather a group that will work on a specific topic, after a demand (by the commanditor who ask for the job), modified by the groups (the people in the conflict) and accepted by the commanditor, and accepted by the therapist, who helps to define it. This is very important, you have to agree on a goal that EVERYBODY want to reach. So, there is a first goal, so that people agree to work on something they believe can be done, though they think it is not possible BECAUSE of the others. When the first goal is reached, when people see a change can occur, then they might want to work on something else.
What I do not like is that I am now more aware of how our human relationship works, which make me feel more powerless in groups, because I do not know myself how to help. Actually, only the foundator is really efficiently working, and it is difficult to know if other people are efficient. Anyway, this type of work is too private to get the right to speak about it, which does not help to show the process.
When I was in it, the most difficult part was to get to REALLY understand how we can be responsible of something we are a victim of! And as long as you do not feel at least partly responsible, you cannot do anything -> powerless as long as "the others" do not do "something". Also, the beginning of the collective intelligence helps you to start, because you are in a process that makes you think that others will also do something.
So, it is great to solve problems that few people cannot deal with, and that a lot of people can deal with. You do not want to be first on the dance-floor? It makes people decide to go at the same time.
Another thing he was good at, was to make someone find out that he is NOT TOTALLY reacting to the actual situation, nor to the person he is in conflict with at the moment. The surprise was always to find out that the reaction was caused by a past event, usually from childhood. This type of insight is not part of his job in all groups, it depends on the context.
Xisca - pics! Dry subtropical Mediterranean - My project
However loud I tell it, this is never a truth, only my experience...
