000 02449cam a2200265 4500500
005 20250121041933.0
041 _afre
042 _adc
100 1 0 _aDe Visscher, Pierre
_eauthor
245 0 0 _aGroup Dynamics: Connections and Divergences: Historical Avatars and Taxonomic Groundwork
260 _c2012.
500 _a14
520 _aThe discipline that Kurt Lewin coined “group dynamics” is misunderstood: the decisive character of the last three years of Lewin’s life and of the three subsequent years is overlooked; many people only refer to the writings prior to his focalization on the group and animation of groups; there are many taxonomical incongruities, and the “dynamic” and “restraining” constructs are poorly understood. From 1945 to 1947, Lewin introduced: the use of the neologism “group dynamics”; the creation of a doctoral program at MIT; the project of training social psychologists there in animating groups; the emergence of “sensitivity training,” i.e., experiential learning by each person during the elucidation of group processes; the preparation of the first “training laboratory” in group practices, conceived as societal re-education via structured experiences. After Lewin’s death, we witnessed a process of the “death of the father”: a split occurred between research “academics” at the Research Center for Group Dynamics and “practitioners” working at the National Training Laboratories held annually at Bethel; there was identity substitution of “basic skills training groups” into diagnostic groups; a subsequent confusion emerged between “T-group” and “sensitivity training”; and the Lewinian re-educative project was not integrated into university circles. Since then, the animation of groups and the post-Lewinian group-dynamic paradigm have developed in the context of action science, independently of social psychology and group psychoanalysis. A strengthening of connections between research, analysis, and post-Lewinian group dynamics would be justified.
690 _ahistory
690 _aGroup
690 _atraining
690 _aLewin
690 _ataxonomy
690 _aanalysis
690 _aBethel
690 _aparadigm
690 _aanimation
786 0 _nConnexions | o 98 | 2 | 2012-11-01 | p. 109-134 | 0337-3126
856 4 1 _uhttps://shs.cairn.info/journal-connexions-2012-2-page-109?lang=en&redirect-ssocas=7080
999 _c459154
_d459154