A Sociolinguistic Approach to Encounter Groups*

Traditional small group concepts have been derived from experimental decision-making groups. Encounter groups not only focus on functional problem-solving but also attempt to facilitate participants-spontaneous and open expression of their authentic emotions in-situ. Through this emphasis the encounter group leader attempts to provide an antidote to role-oriented everyday societal transactions. The complex nature of encounter group interactions defy standard codification by a non-participant researcher. Recently certain small group researchers have become participants in their groups under study as a way of capturing more dynamic processes of group interaction. The small group researcher as participant and encounter group leader/researcher have become united through their use of empathic identification as an artfull method in linking up abstract theoretical concepts with observed group happenings. An ethnography of a Youth Encounter Group (that I lead) is presented to illustrate the complex features of leadership in an encounter group. Through an analysis of my ethnography I attempt to show (1) how both small group researchers and encounter group researchers have presented idealizations of group process divorced from the practical features that organize and sustain the on-going group interactions and (2) how both the small group researcher as participant and encounter group leader/researcher have used the process of empathic identification as an unexplicated resource that has obscured and masked the interpretive work carried on by participants–lay and professional –during the encounter group and by researchers in their professional reports.