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Initially intended as a means to study small group processes at the Tavistock Institute in London, and as an educational device to emphasize the experiential basis of learning, the small group encounter process has developed into a method of studying interactions between group and institution, groups in institutions, and institutions with each other. The small encounter group's ill-defined techniques, broadly and somewhat indiscriminately applied, have produced results regarded by some as antidotes to social ills and by others as a debasement of group psychotherapy and a subversion of the basic tenets of our culture.
The aim of such groups is less the amelioration of suffering and overcoming of disability than it is the achievement of new experiences and sensations. To this end some ten to fifteen persons talk, meditate, fantasize, touch, embrace, dance with, and strip each other. Little or no attempt is made to screen out prospective participants. The outcome of such participation may extend from transitory titillation to permanent conversion. Many take part who could be usefully treated by psychotherapy and, indeed, serious decompensation can result.
Although the small group movement is expanding, the question remains: what are its effects? That a small group experience enhances organization efficiency has neither been proved nor disproved; neither has the claim that it enhances interpersonal skill. Rogers stated that three-fourths of eighty-two participants questioned reported a helpful, positive experience, but Stoller has said that only twenty per cent achieved the gains they wished, while two per cent spoke of actual harm. The percentage of those who suffer breakdowns during or after such encounters varies enormously according to different authorities. At the Menninger School of Psychiatry, three out of eleven residents were adversely affected. However, intense emotional stress occurring in the members may be valued by some as evidence of an active re