Groupthink

     “According to [social psychologist Irving] Janis, groupthink is the “the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.”  Groups engaging in this maladaptive decision-making strategy typically perceive themselves as invulnerable-they’re blinded by optimism.  And this optimism is perpetuated when dissent is discouraged.  In the face of conformity pressures, individual group members come to doubt their own reservations and refrain from voicing dissenting opinions.  Consensus seeking is so important that certain members of the group sometimes become mindguards -people who censor troublesome incoming information…”  The Social Animal (2004), Elliot Aronson, page 15.

     An important point here is that this groupthink is something we are all vulnerable to, it derives from a universal human trait.  Even well intentioned people can succumb to it.  I leave it to the reader to consider whether groupthink is going on in the primal therapy movement, or whether the theory was formed from it.  Just be aware that it exists. If you ever experienced living in the primal society ask yourself whether “individual group members come to doubt their own reservations and refrain from voicing dissenting opinions”. 

     For those with no experience of primal society, I should add that as far as I can tell, I did indeed observe such “mindguards” at the Primal Center.  I did indeed come across people who censored incoming information. I observed several times dissenting ideas or serious complaints being met with a psychological labels such “neurotic”, “repressed”, “parasympathetic”, “paranoid”, “acting out” or even “sociopathic.” To be more specific, I remember hearing in orientation that those patients who cause problems, who complain about a therapist to another therapist, and who garner support for their complaint have all the signs of being sociopathic.  Wow, I thought, I am going to make sure I don’t complain about anything, I don’t want to be labeled a sociopath.  I mentioned it to my close friend later, another primal participant and she agreed, she said she had thought the same thing independently.  Now that I look back on that time, no longer believing in primal theory, it seems unethical, but when you believe in it, those labels are often meant sincerely.  After all, when you believe Primal Therapy could well save the world, to criticize it must be in some way antisocial or sociopathic.  (By the way little or no attention seemed to be paid to the necessary criteria in the DSM IV as far as I could tell, that is: there didn’t need to be an actual behavior you could observe objectively- the diagnosis could just make sense in terms of circular logic without much evidence. See ”Falsifiability in Diagnosis” subsection of the falsifiability page).

     Groupthink is a social psychological phenomenon that has been widely written about, and I encourage the reader to read more about it. 

Websites:

Very good page explaining groupthink:

http://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm

A concise page giving the basic points and ways to avoid groupthink: http://www.cedu.niu.edu/~fulmer/groupthink.htm 

Books

The Social Animal,(2004), Elliot Aronson.