Experiential learning workshop for Indian students.

An experiential workshop was offered to graduate psychology students at a major university in India. The workshop combined Western group counseling concepts with Yoga and indigenous peoples' psychological understandings to help students connect theory, practice, and personal understanding in a culturally relevant framework. Students shared their experiences of group leadership.

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This article describes a 2-day workshop led by the first author that was offered to all psychology master's and doctoral degree students at a major university in India. This workshop offered students an experiential blend of Yoga, psychology, and Western counseling principles as a means to learn about group process and dynamics. Didactic lectures, small- and large-group discussions, and a variety of experiential activities provided the participants with opportunities to learn and integrate principles of group work. The purpose of this blending was to offer a group experience that included activities relevant to the culture of the students participating so that they could more fully grasp the potential of group work. The particular exercises were chosen because they were not only culturally relevant but also offered paths of potential insight and connected well with established concepts of group counseling and development. This workshop was offered with a strong experiential component because of our belief that people learn best when principles of instruction go beyond didactic talking points to also include personal and meaningful experience. The design of this workshop incorporated culturally relevant activities and offered students the opportunity to learn experientially the functions of group leadership identified by Lieberman, Yalom, and Miles (1973): meaning making, caring, structuring, and emotional stimulation.

Yoga, as a system, can be a means to achieve a deeper understanding of the complexity and functioning of counseling groups (Nurenberger, 1976; Rybak & Deuskar, 2004). Yoga is an ancient system, aimed at the scientific study of human psychology, that offers important understandings about human functioning (Coster, 1972).

 
   In contrast to modern psychology, yoga psychology has integrated 
   the various aspects of human functioning into a comprehensive 
   theory and therapeutic method. This includes techniques for working 
   with the unconscious mind, habits, emotions, the physical body and 
   interpersonal relations. Together these techniques become an 
   integrated therapy. (Ajaya, 1976, pp. vii-viii) 

Yoga offers a robust paradigm that can be applied to understanding group process (Rybak & Deuskar, 2004). Yoga encourages the activation of a detached witnessing to one's experience. Calm equanimity of this type can help group members to make the most of the feedback and highly charged interactive experiences that occur within group therapy (Nurenberger, 1976; Rybak & Deuskar, 2004). Thus, yoga, as a system, offers a humanistic and holistic path toward wellness that is not limited to the physical dimension, but also incorporates cognitive, emotional, and spiritual elements.

A central concept of yoga is the notion of yoking oneself to some larger entity. Group work itself can be considered as a type of yoga in the sense that each member is "yoked" to the group for purposes of advancing his or her level of consciousness (Rybak & Deuskar, 2004). The commonalities of yoga and counseling include a personal discipline that also allows one to "let go," clear objectives, and the ability to instill a growing capacity for equanimity (Coster, 1972). These correlates apply equally to the training of group leaders and other counselors. Offering a training experience to budding group leaders gives them the opportunity to identify and integrate these dimensions of group leadership with their ongoing conceptual learning. Energy and experience are key elements to the yoga of group work (Rybak & Deuskar, 2004).