Lee, Sang Bok. "Process Thought of Concrescence and the Phases of Group Development: A Model of Group Psychotherapy." Process Thought and East Asian Culture: Social Science and Natural Science. (May 2004): 97-108.[Conference paper presented at The 5th International Whitehead Conference] Seoul, South Korea, May 25-27. 2004. 

Abstract

Author articulates Whiteheadian idea of concrescence in the light of group development and group psychotherapy and, analogically, related God’s primordial and consequent nature to group therapist’s functional role, performing “therapeutic dipolarity.” The phases of group development were divided into the following four phases according to Whiteheadian concept of concrescence: (1) the initial phase, (2) the aesthetic supplement, (3) the intellectual supplement, (4) the final phase- satisfaction. Group members’ past experiences are converging together in the present group process, interaction and integration as a here-and-now encounter. In the group psychotherapy session, a certain creative changes is being pursed by the group member’s lure for feeling, which is the germ of human mind, as well as by the group psychotherapist’s caring spirit. In the multicultural group psychotherapy sessions, group therapist needs to be critically aware of group members’ multicultural variables, covering socio-economic, religious and life value factors in the post-modern global society.