ESSAY: Group Processes and Stages of Formation

In a 2- to 3-page paper, address the following:

Explain the group’s processes and stage of formation.
Explain curative factors that occurred in the group. Include how these factors might impact client progress.
Explain intragroup conflict that occurred and recommend strategies for managing the conflict. Support your recommendations with evidence-based literature.
Note: The School of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The sample paper provided by the Walden Writing Center provides examples of those required elements (available at http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/57.htm). All papers submitted must use this formatting.

ANSWER

Entering a new group might be challenging to patients due to identity crisis where one is not sure about his or her role. In most cases, patients get confused, and they cannot identify themselves with the group according to the roles to undertake, how to communicate, ideas to share, and even how to handle the plurality of viewpoints. Deciding at this point becomes very difficult; thus, the need to form the group following the fundamental group process and how it should operate come in handy. In the psychotherapy and cognitive-behavior therapy group, it is inevitable that each member has different perspective and expectation of the group. Each has viewpoints based on the experience and personality, thus setting harmonizing objectives and group goals become important when battling with depression.

Group’s Processes and Stages of Formation

The process of group formation usually happens naturally though the intensity of their success differs from one group to another. Many researchers believe that almost every group undergo same process in order to become effective. In 1965, Bruce Tuckman, an American psychologist created a model to describe the team-building process in a constructive way of solving conflicts among the patients aged between 21 and 60 in the group. The model is well known as Tuckman’s stages, which comprise forming, storming, norming and performing. The vital focus of these process is to help patients understand their feelings and behavior.

First and foremost, the forming stage, as the name suggests, covers the initial stages or the first week of initiation. Here, the group members get a chance to know each other. During this period, since everyone seems to be new to the team, there is need to orient with the new group setting. Besides, the only thing that brings the group together is the depression diagnosis and how to come up with different ideas to eliminate the crisis. At this stage, there is discussion about the project goals and objectives which need to be carried out by the group members. However, at this stage, group members do not know each other well in order to focus on productive tasks. Due to that, effective guidance is recommended with regard to the team roles, objectives and responsibility. The second stage is storming; after the group members have known each other, the storm starts. The personality clashes and differences emerge at this stage, and the competition for group roles is witnessed. Everyone wants their ideas to be accepted and be implemented thus marking the climax of conflict in the group. At this point, some….