Being in a Group: psychoeducation to experience bodily sensations and emotions

Abstract

Group psychoeducation can be linked to health promotion. The experience of being in a group generates therapeutic factors and has effects on self-regulation. The theoretical-technical references used are Focusing and Somatic Experience® (SE), which have psychoeducational characteristics that facilitate the self-regulatory process, by creating a security context. The objective is to present and discuss research that analyzed the application of an interventional proposal focusing on bodily sensations and emotions. The research, which is transversal and exploratory in nature, with an emphasis on the participants' narratives, emphasizes the construction of the experience in the relationship. The investigated intervention, divided into five stages, initiated by the body and with the subsequent elaboration of felt meanings, had as a data collection instrument the activities developed in groups, which were recorded and transcribed. 25 university students participated. Speeches about the experience of being in a group were analyzed, in the categories positive, negative and mixed experiences, self-reference, new perspectives and therapeutic factors, which implement self-regulation in a context of communal regulation. We conclude by highlighting the therapeutic factors in the process of being in a group, in which initial insecurity and estrangement are replaced by security, triggering experiential changes.