A number of issues of particular concern to the group were extensively discussed. One was the distinction between our retreats and group marriage counseling on the one hand, sensitivity training and encounter groups on the other. Another issue concerned our emphasis on positive interaction, and the discouragement, though not avoidance, of overt expression of negative feelings between members of the group. We also discussed what causes marriages to get "stuck" so that they cease to grow. This led us naturally to consider the limitations of lay leaders without training in marriage counseling, and how to make effective referrals to professionals when this seems to be indicated. We also talked about the use of silence, so natural to Friends, and how far non-Quakers could accept this.
In all our discussions we were looking forward. There was a confident assurance that we had found something of great importance that must be communicated to others—to the Society of Friends generally, but to the wider world as well.
THE SECOND ROUND
Another training program was organized and a second group of couples were invited to Pendle Hill. On a Friday evening in November 1971, therefore, another wide circle of married couples assembled in the familiar living room at Pendle Hill; later went forth to conduct retreats arranged by their Yearly Meetings; and returned triumphantly in April 1972 to report to one another what had happened.
Six of these couples were new. With them we invited two experienced couples from the first group of trainees. Our idea was that they might help in the training of the other six, and be ready then to graduate as trainers in later regional programs.
We have used this method in training couples before, encouraging a couple conducting a retreat for the first time to team up with another trained couple, each supporting and helping the other in shared leadership. This is a good learning process; and now we were applying it at the level of training potential leaders, in the expectation of making ourselves dispensable. A movement of this kind should not be allowed to focus on personalities. It will prosper best by involving many couples in a broad sharing of leadership responsibility.
We might have asked ourselves whether what had happened in 1969-70 could happen again in 1971-72. Would the high caliber of the earlier group of couples be sustained? Would they again learn quickly enough through the experience of one retreat to function as successful leaders? Would they come back with the same enthusiasm and delight? The answers to these questions would do a great deal to validate the plan we had adopted.
When our couples returned in April 1972, the answers were resoundingly in the affirmative. In one case, it was true, the local arrangements had broken down and they had not had the opportunity yet to conduct a retreat—but they came to the reunion just the same. (Their opportunity for leadership came later.) Reports from all the others, including the two "veteran" couples, had the same authentic ring of success that had been sounded so unmistakably a year earlier.
Quoting from the group:
"We felt our job was to provide some structure to help the experience develop, and then let people sort it out for themselves. Both of us felt it was most important to ride with the tone of the developing situation, and avoid any use of the more aggressive techniques of confrontation. Stan was worried on Saturday that the talk was too general. Then one of the wives broke through by asking if we could discuss something "... down here, where I am ... like SEX?" So we got there ..."