Reflective Essay On Group Session

My group session experience as a group member and leader/co-leader has taught me to be more reserved and pull back from my usual leadership role. The group sessions have taught me to be a better listener by building trust with other group members through the commonalities we share. Throughout the group work, we developed the four stages of the group: initial stage, transition stage, working stage, and final stage. The professor was the facilitator for the first few group sessions and I eventually had the opportunity to be the co-leader after observing my professor. The role of being a leader has always came natural for me. As a result, my biggest goal in participating in the group sessions was to sit back and listen and allow others to speak. …show more content…
During the eighth session, I felt lost and asked Mathew if he was willing to share what I had missed during the session I was out ill. After Matthew summarized his discussion, I too shared my experiences and issues of holding relationships due to my busy schedule, preventing me from making time to check in on others. Both Matthew and I felt that this session and the commonalities we shared, built a connection to our relationship. In this session, we also brought up our cultural upbringings and I brought up the term “Machismo,” which in my culture teaches males that showing and expressing our feelings were not ideal. In this session, all but one member spoke about their cultures and we began to understand each other’s backgrounds better. Most importantly, I gained a better understanding on why some members were reluctant about speaking out about certain topics. From this session and on, the group members continued to work during different sessions, but Roy remained reluctant. Even though our group leader encouraged and invited him to be more active, he remained present but hesitant to