[93] TRAINING COUNSELORS Using an Attitudinal Group-Centered Approach

Some years ago, Gutsch (1967) introduced the concept of an attitudinal group-centered approach to counseling. His ration-ale for this type of encounter setting was that it permitted each group participant the opportunity to explore his own unique world and to share with others those ideas and experiences which helped to shape this world. The difference between what was done in these attitudinal group-centered settings and what was done in other group encounter settings dealt primarily with purpose. The purpose of the attitudinal group setting was to provide a climate in which a person might potentially see himself as subject and object-i.e., a climate in which he was encouraged to look not only at his relationship to the world in which he lived and to those who were in it, but to the innermost relationship he had with himself. Ultimately, the greatest single difference between the attitudinal group-centered approach and other group approaches concerned itself with man’s inner search for identity-i.e., his search for some understanding of the very core of his existence-his relationship with himself-his eigenwelt. This does not mean that the peripheral concerns of man’s existence-i.e., man’s umwelt and mitwelt-were any less important, but rather that they were simply not the only modes of man’s existence