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Interview with Dr. John Hanley - Page 7 INT: One more question on the Large Group Awareness concept and then we'll move on. Dr. Lieberman coined the term 'Large Group Awareness.' Awareness of what? In other words, in these experiential trainings they increase one's awareness. Obviously large groups, that's sort of implicit in that name. But awareness of what? JH: Yeah, that's a great question. I'm now speaking on behalf of Dr. Yalom, and you'd be better off asking Lee Ross and also Mort Lieberman. But I think that they equate awareness with the ability to take a new action. So, their point of view was that people are pretty straightforward and they're not stupid, and that when people become aware of an opening for a new possibility, they step into it. That from their point of view, at least (and I'm sort of speculating here), I think they felt that once people had a shift in their perception of the way that life was occurring to them--once they became aware that, one, it was just their perception, just their interpretation, and two, that they could choose (because they could interpret it any way they chose)--as long as their actions became consistent with the way that they chose, they could create a new future. So awareness plays a big part in human nature. Again, my speculation is that what they were saying is, in a very simple sentence: human beings, when they become aware of a new potential, will automatically step into it. And it's those walls we keep running into and those mistakes we keep making and those breakdowns we keep having simply because we're not attuned or we're not aware of re-creating the same old mistakes over and over again, and that once we become aware of how to prevent that, we automatically step aside and create a new possibility. INT: You mentioned that this approach is not therapy or psychologically-based. What are the primary differences between this approach and a therapeutic, psychological approach to improvement? JH: Well, I think that, at least for us (and I think most of the educational community would agree), what we're presenting is a curriculum for learning, a curriculum for education, and I distinguish education from psychology or therapy. Not to say that people don't learn in therapy. I'm certain that they do, but I think, initially at least, the reason people go to therapy is because they have some dramatic or potentially dramatic emotional break-up/breakdown upset. In the case of the educational model, it's just asking people, "Hey, listen, do you want to learn new things about yourself and the way the world works? Do you want to learn about how to achieve your goals more effectively and more smoothly? If you do, we invite you to take our course." But from this perspective it's strictly education: we're not here to deal with your therapeutic needs because we're simply not equipped to deal with therapeutic needs. |
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