The Mystery of the Double Circle Process

 Two years have past without a breakthrough in the interest among my friends and colleagues concerning the Double Circle. Malcolm Gladwell uses the term revisionist history and talking about how events of the past can be seen in the light of present circumstance quite differently than  the circumstance when  this subject was first conceived.  To give you an example the double circle was developed by accident in 1978.  Since then it appears  that some things we never even thought about have come into science and spirituality that brings me to revise my thinking.   From Rupert Sheldrake we are hearing about the field-effect between animals and even plants for that matter.  How do schools of fish and flocks of birds move in unison?  How can we  sense that someone is standing behind us.  Dr.  Sheldrake, who was a biologist, has offered a method for examining the phenomena of flocks of birds and schools of fish and people standing behind us.  But the supportive person Double Circle Group offers a rich soup for further discovery in this area.  Through Gladwell and others we are finding more and more about how we arrive at decisions in his book called Blink.  For example, how does a supportive person manage to assist the person in front of him participating in group interaction in the inner circle?   What does this supportive person need to know?  In rapid group interaction how can they possibly find out about the person they  are supporting?    In these instances  even the mistakes become a rich source of discovery.  Another question might be why have the supported person dyad  anyway.  Of what use is it.   Well, I presume that pairs can learn to  function effectively without much training at all.  As a matter of fact  the pair does not have the sharp ego edges that a single individual has and thus can be more easily digested by the group is large.   But is the pair able  to go beyond the capabilities of a single individual.    Think what this would mean in the workforce.  Rather than hiring one person you hire two people  and your reason is  that they function better than one person.

Some Elements of the Master Plan

 It should be understood that the Double Circle Group is only an instrument or a vehicle for developing bottom-up processing among lower income and destitute folks within shouting distance of Gainesville Florida. Bottom-up processing must be, in my opinion, developed to counter the extreme threat of artificial intelligence, robotic work, advancing technology, and general population increases beyond our means.  With the advent of the huckster as president-elect it should be no mystery that the ground was shaking beneath us.

With that in mind I would like to begin developing a working weekly group process at the Triangle Club in Gainesville.  However, the configuration of the circle or circles is not a primary issue.  What the Triangle Club needs and Alcoholics Anonymous within the Eye-opener Group needs is a better retention of new people coming into Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe Dick and Tom made a great contribution with their step study effort.  This would be a continuation of that effort in a different format. 

I would like to begin is a single circle allowing for crosstalk and aimed at developing a continuing protocol for the group meetings. 

Meanwhile, we have been continuing the Double Circle Group process at Alachua Presbyterian Church.  We now have six members who are coming or regular basis.  We are meeting usually every two weeks.  One of our charges is to develop a workbook for the double circle group process.  The other is to actually conduct the group to discover more ways of achieving some primary aims, which I will list below:

1.   Discover more about the supporting person process through repeated trials and variations in configuration.  For instance, we need to find out whether it is better to maintain fixed membership in a particular circle while changing who is supporting who at regular intervals.

2.   We need to ultimately decide whether there is a fixed protocol.  This would gradually developed by the workbook.

3.   We need to decide whether we are developing facilitators with a fairly exact definition of what a facilitator is and what is required in terms of training.

4.   We need to decide if facilitators are to be compensated once trained.

5.   We need to find the methods for establishing facilitators in particular settings such as the prisons, schools, and other interested groups.