The Experiential Group and Society

Abstract

The emergence of experiential groups is seen as an expression of society, as a message to be decoded about its nature. Using Basil Bernstein's (1970) classification of group and grid systems of organization and communication, encounter groups are shown to be an example of low group (no boundaries)/high grid (emphasis on interpersonal relations). This condition can be interpreted as a reaction to the low group/low grid condition of contemporary symbolic-rejecting society. It is usually a very unstable situation, characteristic, for instance, of intense millenarian movements. The form which the encounter group movement has taken is also an expression of the nature of the society: namely, the scientific language, the emphasis on means as contrasted with ends, and the importance of small groups. These features seem to point to necessary developments within the encounter movement, independent of the rationalizing claims of practitioners.