If you were to join a personal growth group now, what are some of the agenda issues that you might formulate for yourself? As you envision setting out these agenda issues in front of strangers, what feelings are evoked for you?
Imagine yourself as a group member. What kinds of feedback would you like? Would it all be positive and supportive? Would you prefer to receive challenges along with support from the group to help you develop new alternatives?
Think back to some of your own significant emotional experiences in your life. What factors were present that made those emotional experiences significant to you? What were you able to learn from them? How were you able to implement changes in your thoughts or behaviors as a result?
When family and friends are experiencing difficult times, how do you react? Do you tend to jump into problem-solving mode and tell them how to fix things, or do you tend to respond more by acknowledging their feelings and understanding their reactions?
Envision yourself as the leader of a group being faced with unhelpful group member actions. What frame of mind will help you to assist the members in redirecting their behaviors to more positive channels?
Imagine yourself as a group leader receiving various kinds of feedback from group members. How might you react to positive feedback? Negative? Mixed? How would you like to respond to each type of feedback?
Are there any unresolved strong emotional issues in your life? If so, how might you respond to clients with similar unresolved issues?
More often than not, the reason we recognize issues in others is because the same issues also exist, on some level, in us. Have you ever observed issues in your immediate circle of influence that actually resemble your own?
Think back to a time when you felt really frustrated with or angry at someone; what might really be the deeper issue? In other words, where might you have felt hurt? Where might you have felt unloved?
So often, even the most extroverted of people have trouble giving voice to their true feelings. Are there instances in your life where you were not able to truly express yourself and speak your “truth” in situations? Give examples. As a clinician, how might you model authentic expression of thoughts and ideas?
Generally speaking, one can only take a person as far as they have gone themselves. What are you doing to further your investigation of your own internal world?
Boundaries and the lack thereof is a common theme amongst people. Often we say “yes” when we really mean “no.” Can you think back to times when you said yes to a person or situation when you really wanted to say no? How might boundaries be pertinent for you as a clinician?