Sensitivity training, T-Groups, and encounter groups have become a way of life. Beyond Words traces the history of this movement, the background of its successes, its varieties, and its failures. Dr. Back's approach is neither one of wide-eyed admiration nor hostility. Instead, he has written a book that provides the first long, hard look at sensitivity training as a social phenomenon. From its fortuitous beginnings the movement is followed through its developments at Bethel, its growth across the country, its new centers in California, its spread to Europe. The novelty of this movement, an almost religious exercise based on the scientific ethos, is related to the peculiar conditions of the last quarter century. The movement has acquired its own mythos. Dr. Back examines the interplay of the conflicting aims of self-expression and change, and shows how these contradictory aims have affected the ramifications of the movement in theory, in management, in recreation, and in education. Results emerging from studies on effects of sensitivity training indicate a recurrent pattern of great immediate emphasis followed by little permanent beneficial effect. Finally, Beyond Words assesses the overall impact of the movement, its relation to science, its possible changes, and its portent as a symptom of the state of society. Dr. Back examines the interplay of the conflicting aims of self-expression and change, and shows how these contradictory aims have affected the ramifications of the movement in theory, in management, in recreation, and in education.
In this study of student nurses at Duke University, Professor Simpson challenges earlier research by demonstrating that a professional school does socialise its students. In addition, by constructing a model that brings together competing theories of socialisation, she finds that socialisation is not necessarily cumulative or unidirectional. Conceptualisations that focus on individual students, such as those emphasising role modelling, student values or peer relations, obscure the most significant conditions and processes. The program of a school is the fundamental structure of occupational socialisation and this structure, not its students, should be blamed for failures and praised for success.
In Beyond Words, Kurt Back offers a critical analysis of the modern pilgrims who journey on weekends and summers to centers for group processes, encounter, and personality growth. He uses biography, sociological analysis, and current history to complete a picture of the intensive group process, sensitivity training, T-groups, encounters, and their off-shoots. The book, first published in 1972, emphasizes the social movement aspect of sensitivity trainingâwhat it means for today's society, its promises, and its threats. It is an enlightening examination of a development in the science of humankind at the climax of its career as a social movement.
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