Drawings by Joline Whiteneck
To Wallace and Edna McAfee
and all the members of Group,
past, present, and future.
A Group is composed of a number of individuals who meet and share
themselves with one another. This
project is, in many ways, a Group project. Many other people have
helped
form my views in a variety of ways. I have vicariously
experienced joy
and surprise that comes as we see a person expand and actualize their potentials beyond anything that they dreamed possible. I have
also shared the experience of pain felt by some who we, our society, have not been
able to help. They have contributed immeasurably to my understanding. If it were possible I would like to communicate my
appreciation to them also.
My friends
at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center: staff, physicians, and patients,
gave me a great deal of personal encouragement as well as experiential knowledge in transformation.
I cannot say too much about the influence of the McAfees and the members of Group on my ideas. I will let the chapters that relate to them speak for themselves.
My parents, Kingery and Margueritte Whiteneck, have given me a great amount of support during the writing.
Barbara Davidson accomplished the task of typing the original project while providing much interesting conversation.
Finally, my wife Joline, gave me an unbelievable amount of encouragement, feedback, stimulation, support, and introduced me to the
whole field in the first place.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have attempted to revise my original Ph. D. dissertation with a minimal number of changes. That said, a great deal of experience has transpired in the last 30 years. Consequently, I have added a few comments, explanations, and illustrative examples, as well as a few additional references. These have not really changed any of the basic premises of the original paper. I have had several additional types of Group experiences and a great deal of Crisis Intervention experience while employed by Santa Cruz County Mental Health Department as a Senior Clinician/Crisis Intervention Specialist. While Crisis Intervention is now a regular service of hospitals and mental health departments, it has too often become an intake, evaluation, and referral service, rather than a clinical treatment approach in the manner that it was originally envisioned in the writings of Caplan and Aguilera and Messick.
In my own practice I have continued to approach family, couple, adolescent, individual adult, and Group issues within a crisis counseling-psychotherapy and role-play framework similar to those that I have described in this study. I have also extended the field of Crisis Intervention into other areas of political analysis, radical education, and public administration. The content of my approach has remained the same while experience has honed certain features. Communication principles have become more important and vital for promoting interpersonal development. Humor and play, which emerged as vital therapeutic qualities in my original research, seem to be not only desirable but also indispensable (such a heavy word for such a light subject!). It seems that play's quality of surprise was manifested existentially the way it almost pops-up at unexpected times and places and leads to new and imaginative directions!
Many thanks to G.T. Toriz for shepherding the text from a half dozen disks (I thought “floppy” referred to the mechanical process by which information was recorded and stored. I now see that it refers to the way the text flops around during the reading and transfer process.), entered on a half dozen computers that I used during the transcription and revising, over half a dozen years, to a flash drive, and finally to this website. Any mistakes in the text (For instance, some computers notice that different fonts have been used by these half dozen computers.) are my responsibility.
Malcolm McAfee has been a continual source of support and inspiration. Many coffeehouse napkins have been consumed in our discussion notes, plans, and diagrams. He was one of the founders of PAIDEIA and has maintained this vision throughout a multitude of changes over the years. PAIDEIA itself has developed into a network of research institutes that also include SCHOOL OF JOURNEYS, SCHOOL ON BOARDERS: a GLOBAL NETWORK: www.borderstudiesassociates.net.
Joline Whiteneck has continued to be my inspiration and advisor as well as my two sons, James and Ben. They all keep me both grounded and slightly ahead of myself, hopefully developing and evolving.
#