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Six sessions into the Facilitation Program (FP), there has been a lot of interesting exploration by session hosts, employing both more and less structure in their sessions.

A couple of sessions we have bumped up against a situation where the session end time arrives and some people are still processing. Some want to stay and process, and others are saturated and want to wrap up. Either way, likely, someone feels unfinished.

This post is an exploration of the tension between development and safety, about the group's nervous system capacity, and about how the context we create might serve this balance.

Different ways to process

Firstly i want to look at the different ways that people process. Take harvests as an example. Some of us will wait until they have connected a bunch of dots, and only share in harvest once they have integrated their learning into a semi-coherent 'aha' moment. Others instead tend to speak vulnerably and authentically at length about their sense of the puzzle. Neither is wrong.

Clearly this speaks to a difference in the way people process. At one time this was talked about in terms of introversion and extroversion, but these days it's called internal verses external processing.

Some people need to hear their words out loud in order to integrate them. Their words are part of their regulation. But those that process internally can feel overwhelmed by long rounds of verbal processing. Those that process externally can get a sense of not being seen by the others' silence. People in one camp struggling to relate to the style of the other camp. The internal processors might say, "I want us to say what we want". The external processors might say, i need to process a bit before i know what i want".

One of life's little gifts indeed!

Lets imagine how things might get a little complicated when these dynamics hit time boundaries and other contexts. Maybe a verbal processor just happens to push back against context (in order to find out where they begin and end). Maybe it's late in the session, maybe this triggers the context holders. Now the session either goes over time, or leaves the session with a sense of being unfinished, depending on the host's approach to resolving the dilemma. And so, maybe the resulting tension leads to some dysregulation entering a space that originally had an intention, rightly or wrongly, to create positive experiences.

If we look at this from a nervous system perspective, it might seem that this picture contains a a jumble of nervous systems: sympathetic liveliness meet dorsal introspection, protest meets withdrawal. The facilitator is left trying to hold a space, while hastily attempting to reconcile their own style, verses the style of other group members.

Theoretical wisdom, and it's limits

Approaching this all logical-like, from the distance of our armchairs, some obvious solutions present:

OTOH, in the heat of a situation, a facilitator's capacity to do any of these 'ideal' things, is finite, just like participants'. What happens when the friction of these two groups, bumps ups against that capacity limit? What does this mean for the safety of the group?

The group's window of tolerance

This raises an another interesting question: does a group have its own regulatory window of tolerance? What if this is an emergent trait, something to do with our collective bandwidth for emotional arousal, that we can hold before tipping into chaos?

What i have personally managed to sift from all of the above, assuming a frame where the session has a facilitator, is the notion that the safety of the group 's nervous system is likely bounded by my capacity as a facilitator's to manage emotions.

It might also be said that this window is defined by the bandwidth of whoever is least able to regulate in any given moment. Or, by the one who is most able to co-regulate in any given moment. What if that person happens to be, or not be, the facilitator?

Interesting, right? Especially in light of the responsibility AR gives to facilitators to set and maintain context (that's a big side topic for another time).

I see two ways that facilitators can manage the emotional temperature in the room. By being able to skillfully offer co-regulating interventions in moments of dysregulation. And, by proactively creating context in advance, eg using things like harvest stems and time limits (for example, to shape endings toward a sense of group attunement).

Whatever agreement we have about the role of the facilitator, won't they end up being the limiting factor to the group's ability to hold any edginess that comes up?

What i'm asking is, if i, as a facilitator, know that certain behaviors trigger me, by setting a context that is supportive of keeping the whole room within my (and the common denominators) window of tolerance, isn't that in service of the whole group's practice? I mean, if i create a loose enough context which gives permission for members to go into their more edgy places... knowing that it might lead me as the host into a dysregulated state, where i am unable to hold my own regulation, never mind others' regulation, how is any of that in service of the overall groups growth, development and well-being?

A secure base

This all reminds me of what John Bowlby called the secure base. The basic idea of which is that a reliable consistent home base provides the safety and attunement, which we need in order to confidently explore life away from that base.

Bowlby talked about the journey the child makes from this secure base as:

In this sense, what if the group's secure base is actually the facilitator's regulated presence (and the structures that protect it)? (And btw what if we saw our checkout process as the analogue of Bowlby's integration phase?)

If i was to rephrase this, what if our context structures are not about enforcing conformity, but about managing arousal levels in our collective nervous system? And instead of asking people to be inauthentic, we are instead supporting the group to stay in a window where connection is possible? (And outside that range don't we anyway stop being ourselves, instead just become our defenses?)

As in: the nervous system architecture of the session. Or lets go further, as: the facilitator's regulation IS the group's container. After all if the facilitator's system goes into overwhelm, co-regulation is compromised, and instead the group probably splinters into a set of, albeit well-intended, drama triangle roles.

Conclusion

Even though this hasn't quite finished baking yet, the idea potentially has profound implications. The sense i have is that it supports leaning into the idea that the way we set context is fundamental to holding safety. And where the facilitator sets a certain context, a breakout room might choose to set another context, if they sense the need for it.

This way, the container allows the group to develop within its stretch limit, ie. by practicing with sufficient structure that people are less likely to fall back to old habits and patterns. And in so doing, dysregulating others, which in turn dysregulates still others, leading to a cascade of unhappiness. Such experiences leading at best, to the reinforcement of old patterns, and at worst to relationships flying apart?

I get the sense that we are aspiring to do something different.