A Retrospective View of a Hospital-Wide Group Relations Training Program: Costs, Consequences, and Conclusions

Abstract

This article retrospectively examines the impact of an organization-wide group relations conference experience for professional staff training in a private mental hospital. More than a decade later, the residual assessment of the experience by a large majority of participants is strongly positive, both in regard to personal and professional benefits, and the impact on the organization itself. The conferences provided the organization with an approach to the trials of transition through a difficult period, and led to the development of several important new programs. The experience, however, was not entirely positive. Enthusiasm for the new knowledge of group dynamics led to an inappropriate use of groups as a procrustean method for managing hospital administrative issues, solving personal and professional problems, and treating psychiatric patients. These problems were intensified by the simultaneous introduction of a therapeutic community concept into the hospital. The indiscriminate application of conference methods to the many tasks of a psychiatric institution reflected a failure to recognize that group relations training is a method of learning, not treatment or management. Its limitations notwithstanding, the experience was undeniably positive.