Motivational interveiwing applied to group settings: Agape
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An idea for an introduction to using motivational interviewing in groups.
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Motivational interveiwing applied to group settings: Agape
- 1. motivational interviewing applied to group settings the idea of agape.
- 2. session boundaries • Length … , Break …. • A presentation, with opportunities for comment / discussion, then a group activity. • Focus – I will invite you to think about the effect of using agape in a group setting • My bias: Agape is something I have used and found helpful. I will try to suspend this bias for the duration of the session.
- 3. definition • It is one of the Koine Greek words translated into English as love • Often translated as "unconditional love", • It has been used culturally, interpersonally and individually. This presentation will suggest agape cabn influnce the opeartion of groups through each of these pathways. • So will outline arguments for and against its use at each level.
- 4. cultural level Proponents 1. Jesus – agape leads to reward. 2. Tertullian - agape distinguishes Christians from others. 3. Q.C Quick – agape is an aspiration which bring us closer to god. 4. Stephen Pinker – ideas like agape restrain communal violence. 5. Agape models an (too?) advanced stage of moral development - Kohlberg Challenges 1. Agape is ethnocentric - ignores responsibility of individual to the group 2. Somerset Maughen -Agape is a falsely superior morality unrelated to its functional outcome. 3. Thomas Hobbes- Agape lacks a social contract including the threat of overwhelming force necessary for peace.
- 5. interpersonal level Proponents 1. Oord - Agape promotes general wellbeing after abuse. 2. Agape helps other people change Carl Rogers, Paul Gilbert (ACT), in MI (Miler & Rollnick) it helps us resist a righting reflex. 3. Agape is one way to “Give rejection the finger, and [so] rejection gives it back’. Dutton 4. Agape tempers punitive reactions encouraging people to take risks and learn form their mistakes. Challenges 1. Experiencing agape makes people open to abuse e.g. through seduction, and/or crucifixion. 2. Agape is contradictory with the motivational interviewing stance on curiosity 3. Agape encourages a abdication of responsibility. Behavioral speaking agape can be considered a non contingent reward.
- 6. individual level Proponents 1. Agape can be associated with useful cognitions / positive delusions e.g. “I am ok you are ok 2. Useful container for our other emotions 3. Facilitates self change Carl Rogers, Paul Gilbert (ACT), transitional object (Freud) 4. Feels good Challenges 1. Partial, blinds us to part of reality 2. Ignores individual function of other emotions - information, evolution & influence e.g. hate 3. Suggests only one route to personal change 4. Agape is simply a narcissistic defence pretending our less loving parts do not exist.
- 7. group activity 1 • What to you is common/ the nature to all humans? • and/or • What do you love about all humans/humanity?
- 8. group activity 2 • IF we think is could be useful to experience agape in a group setting. What could we do to experience this in a group setting and induce others to experience it too? • Alternatively IF we think this would not be useful in a group setting. What could we do to make this less likely to happen in a group setting?
- 9. group exercise 3 • Can we practise it in the here and now in this group… • If this ok with you I will start ?
- 10. group exercise 3 • Can we practise it in the here and now in this group… • If this ok with you I will start ?
Editor's Notes
- Proponents 1) In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love (agapēseis) your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love (agapāte) your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what rewards have you? 2) source of identity – Tertullian, in his 2nd century defense of Christians, remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "what marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look,' they say, 'look how they love one another' " (Apology 39). 3) Anglican theologian O.C. Quick cautions however that this agape within human experience is "a very partial and rudimentary realization," and that "in its pure form it is essentially divine." Quick suggests that, If we could imagine the love of one who loves men purely for their own sake, and not because of any need or desire of his own, purely desires their good, and yet loves them wholly, not for what at this moment they are, but for what he knows he can make of them because he made them, then we should have in our minds some true image of the love of the Father and Creator of mankind.[6] Quick, O.C. Doctrines of the Creed, Scribners, 1938 p. 55. Mi style question: How do our aspirations alter how we might accept ourselves? 4) Stephen Pinker - ideas of higher purpose restrains communal violence. Ted talk http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html plus psychopath book. Dawkins – selfish gene. That which distinguishes from animals and their behaviour is the transmission of ideas across the generations. 5) Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Agape could be expressed at different stages of development of morality. Its function may determine the stage of moral development Level 1 (Pre-Conventional) 1. Obedience and punishment orientation (How can I avoid punishment?) 2. Self-interest orientation (What's in it for me?) (Paying for a benefit) Level 2 (Conventional) 3. Interpersonal accord and conformity (Social norms) (The good boy/girl attitude) 4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation (Law and order morality) Level 3 (Post-Conventional) 5. Social contract orientation 6. Universal ethical principles (Principled conscience) Challenges 1) Ethnocentric: Asian notions of collectivism over western notion of individualism would question why we would vaunt any individual above there utilitarian contribution to the group. 2) Prescriptive - Using agape as discrimination between people: Somerset Maugham in Of Human bondage relays” Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous….It is for your private pleasure you give two pence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.” 3. Thomas Hobbes Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature ("the war of all against all") could only be avoided by strong undivided government.
- 1. Thomas Jay Oord summarizing understandings has defined agape as "an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being." (2010). Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press. ISBN 1-58743-257-9. 2. The love and implict acceptance of others provides the conditions by which other people may self actualise. 3. On the social success of psychopaths Kevin Dutton (2012) (the wisdom of psychopaths) Or simply the less you feel anxious about others peoples minute by minute engagement with you it may be you are less often rejected. 4. A shared group identity of agape may put restrictions upon behaviour by individuals of that group. As such it may give greater chance for permissiveness and social learning (as evidence based with therapeutic communities). Challenges 1. Agape is a social interaction without boundaries – i.e. it is not love. Emotional equations by Chip Conley (date) suggests Love = selflessness + boundaries alternatively does a belief in agape allow someone else to abuse i.e. is agape is the good cop to others bad cop? 2. There is a contradiction with other parts of the MI stance - the desire for curiosity (or openness to new experience (one of the big five))….Shoshin: a Beginners mind in Buddhist terms has many possibilities. In contrast an experts mind contains few possibilities. Is Agape a pre ordained destination rather than opening up a series of possibilities? 3. Possible negative impact on others What about people taking responsibility for their actions? Tit for tat. Deterrence, punishment (consequences). What about justice? What about sin? How does a stance of agape affect our ability to use the other means of affect individuals?
- Proponents 1. Cognitive frameworks: agape is a self other schema: the condition of believing and associated feeling “I am ok and you are ok.” (Transactional analysis (Eric Berne) – Thomas Harris 1967). The utility of postive delusions in maintiang mental health is long established including in act therapy and utilitarian philosophies. 2.Emotional Container – definition psychodynamic idea 3. Carl Rogers suggests “the paradox that when I accept myself just as I am, I can change’ Mi suggests that Agape is the emotional state that should help others accept them as they are for themselves. Acceptance and compassion therapy is a more recent advocate of this means of change. Paul Gilbert ( ) See interpersonal level .. It may be that it is easier to attach/love people in general (a non specified other than a specific person. As such agape for others may represent a stepping stone or transitional object to more realistic attachments to individuals. 4 Authors subjective experience Challenges 1. What do we miss? 2. Suggested functions of other emotions: 3. George Bernard Shaw “ do not do unto others as you would have done to yourself because we all have different tastes.” 4. Narcissist defence
- What is the relationship between acceptance of yourself and love for others?
- My view about what helps to induce agape in a group: relax, laugh, feel things, believe it, take a leap of faith about other people, make no conditional compliments. Feel it (contagion to others). Statements: I am happy to be here; its good to see you; sorry… What stops us: humiliation, abuse, injury, trauma, avoidance, fear of future harm, dissociation.
- Supplementary questions: 1) What does unconditional love feel like to give? / to receive in a group? 2) I wonder what is it like to do this explicitly (with consent) in this or other groups? Rather than implicitly (possibly without consent)?