Facilitating facilitators' facilitation: Experience with a model for teaching leaders of hypnosis practice groups

We developed a 6 hour training seminar for leaders of small group practice sessions integral to introductory hypnosis workshops. It has been offered a nnually for 3 years to prepare new faculty for our Introductory Workshop. A pplicants met specific experience criteria. Participation was limited to 8 to match and model 8 learners/small group in workshops. Learners reviewed p rinciples of adult education, group dynamics, and guidelines for leaders. E ach had the opportunity to role-play small group participant and small grou p leader in two 3 hour evening periods a week apart. Twenty-four learners p articipated. Some had taught before. Most were new to teaching small groups and desired specific training. Extensive evaluation of the training was in tegral to the process. Training was evaluated by examining ratings of leade rs by participants in our Annual Introductory Workshop. Ratings used the sa me parameters taught and evaluated during the training seminar. The trainin g curriculum is presented with the results of evaluations of group leaders' performances in the Annual Workshop. Ratings of "experienced" leaders who did not participate in the training are compared to those of newly trained teachers. Leaders with training plus experience were more effective then le aders with many years of experience.