From Social Alienation to Mental Health through Koinonia via the Median Group

Introduction

I would like to give you my experiences of working with Median Groups, being a brief account of more than 10 years study and work, hoping by doing so to illustrate some of Pat de Maré’s basic Median Group concepts and the scope of this approach. Some of these ideas are:

Working with Psychiatric and Prison Groups

The group of approximately 20 members, all with psychiatric histories, had met as a social group on a Sunday afternoon in an empty community centre in London’s east end. Sunday was chosen as it was thought to identify a group that could be experiencing family problems as everyone else was probably sitting down to Sunday lunch with their ‘nearest and dearest’. I came to learn that, indeed, this group was either alienated from their family or did not have one. After four very successful years, the ‘authorities’ felt I could be in a dangerous situation and undertook a risk assessment. My big problems then started when we began to meet in a ‘safer’ environment. That is another article.

The group was an open one and named as a ‘poetry group’ in order to avoid any stigma attached to mental illness. I learned, in time, this guaranteed anyone with mental health issues. Referrals came from psychiatrists, G.P.s and the community. I was not overly concerned with learning diagnostic labels. Many members knew their own and it was not difficult to spot the manic-depressive, the psychotic or the schizophrenic, as when members would inform me that Gary was in the toilet talking to his voices. I also allowed some members to bring a mother or girlfriend. We even had a Cuban musician who had been held in a Cuban concentration camp, and so we found ourselves exposed to political ideas outside our little world.

As well as the variety of illnesses, the ages in the group ranged from 24 to 65 years. The majority were men, mostly living alone. A few lived with their parents and a few live in group homes. The oldest, who was living in a group home, had been an inpatient since he was 19 years old, so quite institutionalized. I worked with this group for eight years, only leaving to care for a dying sister in Canada. On starting, I took a deep breath and reminded myself of de Maré’s concept of Dialogue and the need to learn to talk, and that of being a convenor rather than conductor. To promote friendliness and on the level interaction, we started with a drink and biscuits. This group did talk to each other but with poems. I sat and listened and along with others commented and observed. As you can imagine these poems were harrowing. Many described the terrible experiences in a mental hospital. I gathered these poems together and had them published. Slowly, the flow of poems dropped off and we started to learn how to talk to each other without them. I rarely, if ever, made interpretations, mainly encouraging talking, friendliness and trying to remain on the level.

Several times, I brought my own poem, which I thought voiced some cultural concerns I felt strongly about. Growing up in Canada, which was a British colony, and now living in London, I became aware of some of cultural assumptions held. They were not a pretty sight.

As the group developed, there were examples of Individuation but one stands out. Late one Sunday afternoon, as we were leaving, I found Tom, aged 24 years, at the door wearing a raincoat on a sunny summer day. I had no idea where he came from but I welcomed him and told him the group hours. He returned the following week but he was late. Over a period, he would arrive always late, always wearing his raincoat, but always edging closer to the starting time of 2pm. Eventually, he made it on time but sat outside the group and, yes, in his raincoat.

Although welcomed to join us, he remained outside but for much less time than it took him to find the right time. One could say he seemed very much an individual but he was not in the group. Eventually, I saw him sitting inside the group, still in his raincoat, and without speaking. Then, one especially hot July, someone turned to him and asked if he was not too hot wearing his raincoat. His first word was ‘Yes’. This gentle but profound question of concern and curiosity opened the door. From then on, he began to speak; slowly and simply for the first year but with growing confidence. He did not write poems like the others and one could speculate that he represented the new ‘Micro-Culture’ waiting to develop. Some time afterwards, the raincoat came off. Four years later, he arrived for a social I occasionally organized. To my very pleasant surprise, he was very smartly dressed and with a girlfriend!

Ray, who was middle aged, was a dramatic example of how a post-traumatic experience could be mitigated by the multipersonal and multidimensional tool of dialogue. Ray sat in the group only mumbling ‘creeping Jesus’. This would be his only response to any topic, although he only commented very occasionally and, on the whole, sat mumbling these words. I speculated to myself what they could mean but failed to make any sense except that this was the only language that Ray knew. Without being quite aware how we began, I found the group talking about a flood in the Isle of Wight in the 1950s and I became aware of Ray saying more often ‘creeping Jesus’. Slowly, over a period of weeks, we heard how Ray had been trapped in a church as the floodwaters rose. At last, I understood the meaning of ‘creeping Jesus’. In his terror and panic, Ray had watched the floodwaters slowly rising above a statue of Christ.

After some time, I was pleased to see developments in networking outside the group. Because of the incest taboo, this is discouraged in small groups. However, as Median Groups develop a culture outside the family, one can move from the family ties of Kinship to the social and neighbourly friendship ones of Kithship.

I stayed in contact with some members after I left and was thrilled to see that some went on to have rewarding lives. One man returned to his painting, joined a life drawing class and was recently asked to organize a sculpture tour of London. Another young man, who had suffered dreadfully from the death of his mother from cancer, was angry with his uncaring father and the inhumane treatment from his compulsory hospital admissions, had at last found a girlfriend and had become a very accomplished ‘rap’ singer. He had made friends with a much more stable man in the group and their friendship has endured.

Time in Prison

After the death of my sister in Canada, I returned to London and to my commitment to the Median Group, and continued attending the seminars. With the support of the seminar, David set up a Median Group at a top security category ‘A’ prison. These were murderers, rapists and drug offenders. Volunteers were required and, again, I found myself facing an offer that I could not refuse. Apart from the occasional Median Group workshop, it was very hard to get one of these darn groups set up. So, there I found myself sitting, anxious and trembling in a group of category ‘A’ prisoners, not knowing what to expect and, of course, the unexpected did happen. A young prisoner asked if he could read one of his poems! Who would have thought? And so my time in prison started. I became very fond of this group and miss them still. I have many interesting experiences and memories and would like to share three examples of Median Group work concepts.

The first deals with Trevor, a man of 30, full of hatred towards his parents for putting him into care as a child. This and abuse was a regular theme in these men’s lives. The extent of Trevor’s anger led me to think he must have been a murder waiting to happen, and because he was in this group, the murder must have happened. I made no attempt to learn these men’s backgrounds.

Trevor had been attending the group for sometime before I joined, which I thought very important in view of what he shared very early with us. He told us that one day a guard had humiliated him in front of others and I could imagine the murderous rage he must have felt. He then went on to relate with a degree of pride that, instead of retaliating, he walked away and sat in his cell thinking about the incident for a couple of days. This, in itself, was an achievement but, to my astonishment, he approached the guard and quietly said that what the guard had said had upset him. I was not sure if I could have acted likewise but I was sure that this was an example of the Median Group helping him to Re-flect rather than Re-act.

My second example is one of Transposition. This is when a whole culture is transposed into the present. I noted this dynamic in a group of young Afro-Caribbean men who seemed very much like the average streetwise, cool, young men you see in the streets of London. One, Desmond, stood out from the others. He was not cool. He was not streetwise. Rather he seemed naïve and vulnerable. I thought he seemed to have come straight from a rural background. He sat away from the other Afro-Caribbeans. I noticed a pattern of communication develop with the other Afro-Caribbeans consistently laughing and humiliating him. This was in contrast to the white members who sat neutrally quiet. They did not even respond when we were informed with derision bordering on embarrassment that Desmond had caught a pigeon and tried roasting it— something, which I suspected would have been normal in a rural, poor area. It was not until afterwards that I realized I was observing Transposition. What was being transposed onto Desmond was a white slave culture, unconsciously absorbed by the Afro-Caribbeans. Unknowingly, they had adopted a white man’s views. Sadly, sometimes one saw the battle raging internally, defensively needing to dress the best, even if poor; spending the last penny to look good.

De Maré maintains because of its size and through dialogue the individual becomes aware of his cultural structures, assumptions and its meaning to him. Often, I found the men thinking and reflecting on their backgrounds, which in a small group might be seen as avoidance and be discouraged.

My third example involves Neville, a young man who had been thinking a lot about an earlier session in which violence had been examined. This session had brought to his consciousness an experience when he was eight years old. He recalled looking out the window and seeing people shooting at each other. He grew up assuming without question this was how people behaved. Through dialogue came the sudden realization to him that this was violence. This prompted another man to recount the murder of his brother who accidentally walked into someone else’s neighbourhood. So we see Outsight rather than Insight operating and the ability of these unconscious cultural assumptions to be examined. The Power of the Mind.

Well, there you have it—a very brief account but one which I hope helps, to some extent, illustrate some important and basic Median Group ideas and that, with very modest experience and understanding, one can put these into practice. The key ideas being size, learning to talk, finding ones voice, transposition, micro-cultures, levelling, cultural assumptions, outsight, and most of all the Mind and thinking.

My direct work with Median Groups stopped when I relocated to my house in Italy. But, I still carry Median Group ideas with me. Thus, I succeeded in getting my Alpaca Association to hold their annual meetings in a circle. I was told it made a big difference. The demands of my small farmhouse and assorted animals, the big demands of all that Italy has to offer, and the responsibility of having an elderly mother in Canada overtook a few other efforts. I have to content myself with monthly meetings of the Median Group seminar in London. I feel more than ever, however, seeing mindless power everywhere that it is imperative we look at the power of the mind.