The invited presenter: outrageousness and outrage

I describe aspects of a multimodal presentation sponsored by a professional organization of group psychotherapists, entailing lecture and discussion, a small demonstration or fishbowl group, and a large group experience. As the invited presenter, I was being counted on to attract attendees, to stimulate and maintain their interest, and to draw enthusiasm to the host organization and its future conferences. This required, in short order, promoting cohesion, establishing norms, and creating a safe enough culture to embrace challenge, to take risks, to learn, and to seek help. Events occurring in both the larger and smaller groups were to be utilized for the benefit of the individuals and the groups themselves, to make the experience interesting and sufficiently compelling, to teach the basic principles promised by the conference's theme, and to demonstrate technique. Dysfunction or negative consequences were to be avoided. My mode of leadership was perceived by some as positive if not outrageous, but for others it just provoked outrage. Perhaps such reactions are to be expected whenever a leader challenges a group to experience and think in new ways. I tried to utilize the ensuring controversy to illustrate the conference's topic: loving, hating, and curiosity-group processes of resistance, rebellion, and refusal.