There are two significant respects in which our marriage enrichment retreats differ from encounter groups. First, encounter groups are composed of individuals, while our groups are confined to, and led by, married couples. This distinction calls for different approaches. There is a greater complexity in the leadership, and a greater complexity in the group itself. The encounter group is confined to interactions between separate individuals and usually these individuals have not known each other before joining the group and probably will not continue association afterwards. By contrast, we have at least three kinds of interaction: between individuals within the group, between couples (including the leading couple) within the group, and between husband and wife within the marital unit.
This multidimensional aspect of the enrichment group not only makes it more complex, but also increases its potential. This is particularly true after the experience is over. From our knowledge of encounter groups we are aware of the problems encountered by the individual who, after experiencing a new and invigorating openness and warmth in interaction with others returns home to an atmosphere in which a similar quality of relationship cannot be sustained unless there are already friends and associates at home who have had the benefit of earlier encounter experiences. In the case of our marriage enrichment retreats, the experience is not gained by an isolated individual, but by a preexisting social unit, so that new levels of openness and warmth which the couple have experienced in the group can continue to be maintained after their return home. This would suggest that the "casualty rates" for couples would not be nearly so high as for individuals. We know of no precise study that has investigated this, but our general impressions would seem to confirm it.
The second significant difference between encounter and marriage enrichment groups raises a somewhat controversial question. Encounter groups are more ready to evoke negative interaction between participants, while we place major emphasis upon positive interaction.
If our judgment of encounter groups is in this respect inaccurate we are open to correction. We have, however, gained the impression from many sources that an important technique used in these groups is to provide opportunities for the participants to secure cathartic release of their pent-up hostilities, including hostilities engendered by, or projected upon the group leader or one or more of its members. We recognize that many people in our culture are pregnant with suppressed hostility or rage, and that the provision of properly controlled opportunities for its release may constitute a commendable service; and since the group members are generally strangers who will not be personally and socially involved later, no entangling complications are likely to follow.
For our married couples, the situation is different. We do not mean that they do not have hostile feelings toward each other. They often do, and this comes out clearly and unmistakably. We do not mean, either, that healthy discharge of these feelings might not be good for them—in our therapeutic work with individual couples in conjoint interviews, we make full use of such controlled opportunity for cathartic release with ensuing interpretation. It is our considered opinion, however, that in the particular context of our enrichment retreats, unrestrained discharge of hostile feelings should in general not be encouraged.
Our reasons? One, the shortness of the available time might not permit the proper resolution of such episodes. Two, a couple who have openly discharged rage against each other may well react later with deep feelings of humiliation that are not easily assuaged. Three, coping with this kind of explosive emotional discharge could be alarming for lay leaders not accustomed, as the therapist is, to the expression of deep feelings which normally are not displayed in public. Four, other members of the group could be similarly disturbed and diverted from full participation in the main purpose of the retreat. This complaint has actually been made, and we think justly, by participating couples in a group where a violent and prolonged emotional episode took place.
We have been criticized for taking this position, but have not been persuaded to change our considered opinion. That opinion is reinforced by another conclusion, namely, that when genuine positive interaction is promoted, negative emotion, even when it is strong and intense, tends to dissolve and wither away. Couples have told us how their fierce hate melted in the atmosphere of warm and loving support engendered in the group, and with the stirring of compassion within them, they began to see each other in a new light. We are inclined to the view, after hearing such testimonies, that in deploying our therapeutic armament we have given short shrift to the power of love not only to cast out fear, but also to turn away wrath.
LAY LEADERSHIP
Our decision to train lay couples for leadership was not hastily made. In fact in the early years during which we were leading retreats we knew of no other couples who were doing so. After seven years we felt that we knew what we were doing. Although we expected criticism from some of our professional colleagues this has not developed to any significant degree, and we are now entirely satisfied that we were justified in taking such a calculated risk. We know of no case where our lay couples have encountered crisis situations which they were unable to handle with wisdom and skill.