This is an excellent article! I was in college during 1965-1969, and entered grad school in clinical psychology immediately after. Many of my friends participated in NTL groups. I wrote my master's thesis on NTL groups, focusing on the correlations between self-reported change in participants and behaviors they ascribed to group leaders.…
This is an excellent article! I was in college during 1965-1969, and entered grad school in clinical psychology immediately after. Many of my friends participated in NTL groups. I wrote my master's thesis on NTL groups, focusing on the correlations between self-reported change in participants and behaviors they ascribed to group leaders. My thesis was neutral on the safety of T-groups, as the participants in the groups I studied reported mostly positive experiences. I never participated in them myself, however, because of the frightening stories I heard from friends who did.
One of the core features of T-groups was that participants were encouraged to engage in highly aggressive behavior towards other participants. The stressful group environments tended to elicit aggressive behavior anyway, and the leaders were intensely critical of anyone who tried to protect victims from attacks. The result was that participants were "broken down" emotionally, and this was viewed as a positive, necessary stage in the process. This philosophy has declined in popularity but continues to influence the conduct of unstructured group psychotherapy in clinical settings.
I don't know to what extent the NTL approach also influenced the diversity training that was so popular in corporations several decades ago. These were generally very structured trainings, involving a lot of low level personality tests (like the Myers Briggs) and experiential exercises. They were relatively benign in comparison with the T-groups, but the evidence base reportedly shows that diversity training of that type ranged from ineffective to destructive relative to the goal of decreasing racial tension in workplaces. (I can't offer my own opinion about the evidence base because I haven't reviewed it).
Descriptions of the current type of mandated "anti-racism" trainings do indeed sound a lot like the NTL model. Thanks to Joseph Klein and RLS for bringing out this history, which has not been mentioned in any other literature I have read regarding DiAngelo.
Your second paragraph is a nearly perfect description of social media over the last 5-8 years. The Internet is enabling NTL groups on a global scale. Horrifying.
Yes, that is a good point. In both cases the aggression is disinhibited via highly stressful stimulation in a group, mob context. Disinhibited abuse basically, in which the power of authority figures is aligned with the aggressors at the expense of victims.
The feminist CR groups I was in from 1970 to a few years later were not at all like NTL groups that I studied. The university connected feminist groups in my area were what would be today classified as "support groups," in which women talked about things of importance to them as women and read articles written by influential feminists. There were also community organizing groups that did presentations designed to recruit activists. Over time, a more authoritarian faction of women developed who were very into policing the thought, language, clothing, behavior in relationships, and sexual preferences of women activists. Many of the policing types were consciously self-identified with "Marxist" activism and had been previously involved in the New Left of the Sixties and early Seventies. I remember hearing favorable opinions of Mao's group criticism sessions.
The NTL groups I knew about were also during the Seventies. They were professionally led, mostly but not entirely by mental health professionals. A similar kind of program went on at Tavistock during the same time.
This is an excellent article! I was in college during 1965-1969, and entered grad school in clinical psychology immediately after. Many of my friends participated in NTL groups. I wrote my master's thesis on NTL groups, focusing on the correlations between self-reported change in participants and behaviors they ascribed to group leaders. My thesis was neutral on the safety of T-groups, as the participants in the groups I studied reported mostly positive experiences. I never participated in them myself, however, because of the frightening stories I heard from friends who did.
One of the core features of T-groups was that participants were encouraged to engage in highly aggressive behavior towards other participants. The stressful group environments tended to elicit aggressive behavior anyway, and the leaders were intensely critical of anyone who tried to protect victims from attacks. The result was that participants were "broken down" emotionally, and this was viewed as a positive, necessary stage in the process. This philosophy has declined in popularity but continues to influence the conduct of unstructured group psychotherapy in clinical settings.
I don't know to what extent the NTL approach also influenced the diversity training that was so popular in corporations several decades ago. These were generally very structured trainings, involving a lot of low level personality tests (like the Myers Briggs) and experiential exercises. They were relatively benign in comparison with the T-groups, but the evidence base reportedly shows that diversity training of that type ranged from ineffective to destructive relative to the goal of decreasing racial tension in workplaces. (I can't offer my own opinion about the evidence base because I haven't reviewed it).
Descriptions of the current type of mandated "anti-racism" trainings do indeed sound a lot like the NTL model. Thanks to Joseph Klein and RLS for bringing out this history, which has not been mentioned in any other literature I have read regarding DiAngelo.
Thank you! Could you send me your masters thesis? Would love to see it.
https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/7158
Thanks!
My pleasure! I appreciate your interest!
Thank you for sharing this!!
Your second paragraph is a nearly perfect description of social media over the last 5-8 years. The Internet is enabling NTL groups on a global scale. Horrifying.
That would make for a great essay. Social media as a digital NTL group.
Yes, that is a good point. In both cases the aggression is disinhibited via highly stressful stimulation in a group, mob context. Disinhibited abuse basically, in which the power of authority figures is aligned with the aggressors at the expense of victims.
Feminist consciousness raising groups used the NTL model too.
The feminist CR groups I was in from 1970 to a few years later were not at all like NTL groups that I studied. The university connected feminist groups in my area were what would be today classified as "support groups," in which women talked about things of importance to them as women and read articles written by influential feminists. There were also community organizing groups that did presentations designed to recruit activists. Over time, a more authoritarian faction of women developed who were very into policing the thought, language, clothing, behavior in relationships, and sexual preferences of women activists. Many of the policing types were consciously self-identified with "Marxist" activism and had been previously involved in the New Left of the Sixties and early Seventies. I remember hearing favorable opinions of Mao's group criticism sessions.
The NTL groups I knew about were also during the Seventies. They were professionally led, mostly but not entirely by mental health professionals. A similar kind of program went on at Tavistock during the same time.