Techniques and Interventions
The techniques and interventions that Dr. Ormont has developed all relate in one way or another to two stabilizing forces: The Group Contract and Bridging techniques. In addition, interventions and techniques to maintain the safety of the individual and the integrity of the group are given primary importance.
The Group Contract
The group contract provides an objective, unchanging structure that all group members can observe in relation to all other group members' behavior and feelings. All group members agree to follow the contract that Dr. Ormont has developed. They understand its purpose is to guide the group forward in their work together. They discover that they all deviate from the guide from time to time. The group members' resistance to following the agreed upon contract provides a solid basis on which both the leader and group members can explore and study the kinds of stumbling blocks that impede group members not only in the group process, but in their daily lives.
Bridging Techniques
Bridging refers to a set of interventions group leaders can use to form and strengthen emotional bonds and generative communication between group members. Dr. Ormont has developed specific techniques for building bridges among group members depending on the immediate objective. Immediate objectives include such things as support for an individual member, energizing the group, promoting full participation, building group cohesion, promoting generative communication between members, and building and maintaining safety in the group.
Safety in a Group
Broadly defined, safety in the group is established by helping group members differentiate between interactions or exchanges in the group that are constructive and nourishing, versus interactions that are unproductive, damaging, or destructive. Dr. Ormont's interventions are designed to work in concert to protect group members from exposure to toxic stimuli or noxious emotional interchanges within the group, while recognizing and supporting the personal strengths of group members.
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“The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)