Team building through the DIR model of Stanley Greenspan



The article describes the model of psycho-diagnostics of Stanley Greenspan (the DIR model), which includes six stages of development of the child's ego. And analyzed how the team in its development passes through all six stages of this model (homeostasis, attachment, somatopsychological differentiation, the stage of organization of behavior, representational capacity, representational differentiation).

It is concluded that the DIR model can be successfully used to analyze the work of the team. Since finding a violation at any stage of development and timely correcting it, you can achieve greater productivity and effective work of each of its members.

Keywords: team, development, ego, teambuilding, DIR, the Greenspan Floortime Approach

The team like any other system has its own hierarchy, interaction standards, functional-role specialization and a common goal. The team is distinguished by many more indirect features, such as a Unified dictionary, mutual trust, positive emotional and motivational background. But the two principal distinctive characteristics of the team are:

1) a common goal, which is known to all team members and unanimously adopted, this is the image of the future of the team,

2) cooperation or «joint work» when people work together, rather than side by side. Every member of the team knows his job site and understands that he is personally responsible for him.

The team is distinguished by many more indirect features, such as a single vocabulary, mutual trust, positive emotional and motivational background. But the two principal distinctive characteristics of the team are:

1) a common goal, which is known to all team members and unanimously adopted, is the image of the future team,

2) cooperation or «joint work» when people work together, rather than side by side. Each member of the team knows their part of the job and understands that he is personally responsible for this.

Gradual formation of social interaction, team skills and patterns of human mental development, focused on a specific branch of psychological science — developmental psychology. Questions of the formation of the team, effective management of personnel and production are handled by management science

One of the key concepts is development — this is a natural change in the phenomenon or process over time, expressed in qualitative and structural transformations. The main thing that distinguishes the concept of development from other concepts that denote changes in time is the emphasis on the appearance of something qualitatively new that did not exist before. With this concept, other processes of change are correlated.

Growth is a quantitative change.

Maturation is a change in accordance with the genetic plan.

Learning is the process of acquiring an individual experience.

Socialization is the process of assimilation of norms, attitudes, customs, vital values, roles and expectations of a particular social group that allows a person to feel and function as a full member of society.

Thus, development is a complex concept that includes the processes of growth, maturation, training, socialization, and others.

A huge role in understanding the distinctive features of the development process was provided by the works of H. Werner (1890–1964) and L. S. Vygotsky (1896–1934). H. Werner believes that development is more than the passage of time (we can grow older, but not develop); Development is more than a change in size (we can become taller or thicker, but it also does not reflect development). From his point of view, development always refers to changes in the structure that obey the orthogenetic principle: «When development occurs, it starts from the state of relative absence of differentiation and develops in the direction of increasing differentiation and hierarchical integration» [1]. For example, when children begin to draw, their movements are not differentiated, they are monotonous, as a result, scribbles are obtained. Later the child learns different movements and drawing becomes more differentiated. Subsequently, hierarchical integration appears, when the drawing is carried out in accordance with the intention of the child.

The famous psychologist Jean Piaget chose to study the cognitive-genetic approach, which primarily considers the development of thinking and intellect. Piaget believed that the main feature of the child's thinking in the period from 2 to 7 years is egocentrism. Egocentrism is the cognitive position that a child looks at the world only from his point of view, or, in other words, the inability to see the world from the point of view of another person, to distinguish between one's own and other possible points of view. It is because of egocentric thinking that children often believe that others perceive, think and feel the same things that they do. A clear example of the egocentric position of the child is Piaget's classic «Three Mountains», in which the child was asked to look at the pictures from the opposite side where the doll was sitting. Children 4–6 years old do not understand the difference between their position and the position of the doll. They tend to choose a picture depicting what they see themselves.

The development of the ego is an indispensable stage in the development of human consciousness. The child psychoanalyst Stanley Greenspan has integrated various approaches to early personal development and created a working model of psycho-diagnostics, which was highlighted in the book «The development of the ego: Implications for personality theory, Psychopathology, and the psychotherapeutic process».

He approached the problem of early development of personality from his position. Greenspan noticed that when adults do not make the child do what they themselves think is necessary, but try to understand the child's hobbies and join his game, the child is involved in interaction with the adult. There is an opportunity to develop step by step his emotions, intellect, motor skills of the body. The task of an adult is to establish a trusting relationship with the child and be attentive to his personality: what he likes, what he can do and what is not yet. The educator needs not just to train individual skills, but to make sure that the child would like to communicate, that he was interested and this interest would encourage him to social, emotional and intellectual development. [2]

Stanley Greenspan called his approach DIR (Developmental Individual-difference Relationship-based model, that is, a development model based on relationships, taking into account individual differences). And Floortime has become a practical part of this approach.

For the first time, Stanley Greenspan applied Floortime Approach to working with children with autism in the 1980s. And up to now, this method remains the most effective and promotes the development of any child.

Greenspan distinguishes six stages that the child passes in its development:

1. The stage of interest in the world, which is reached by 3 months;
2. The stage of attachment. Reach her child should be up to 9 months;
3. Stage of bilateral communication. Children normally reach it by 9 months;
4. The stage of self-awareness (to 1.5 years);
5. Stage of emotional ideas (to 2.5 years);
6. Stage of emotional thinking (to 4 years).

Each stage develops the corresponding aspect of the sense of self. In this model, growth, communication and the process of resolving difficulties are viewed through the prism of levels of development and relationship. Violations at each of these levels can play an important role in the formation of symptoms and common problems. Having identified the problem, the psychologist needs to work at the level where difficulties arise. The task of a parent or a psychologist is to help a person to function optimally simultaneously at all levels in the context of a full range of thematically affective areas.

The advantage of this model is not only its exceptional effectiveness in working with children but also that each of the described stages can be transferred to a social group. Any new community, a team of people, a working group set up with a common goal, passes in its life cycle a number of necessary stages of development [3]:

1. Becoming, creating a team.
2. Successful development. The team works productively for the result. The stage ends with the achievement of a team goal.
3. Search, or search period. The team, on the one hand, enjoys success, on the other hand, seeks new goals. After the expiration of the search phase (for each team it is different, on average 3–4 months), an alternative is possible: the disintegration of the team or work to achieve a new goal.
4. Disintegration (alternative). Some members leave the team because of what is growing tension. As a result of this — reorganization.
5. Growth (alternative). The team finds a new common goal, is inspired and starts working in the zone of successful development. It does not exclude a slight partial update of the team.

The initial stages of association and functioning of the group correspond to the early development of the child. What makes it possible to apply The Greenspan Floortime Approach to the group and consider its development as the formation of the ego and ego-functions of the individual. The issues and problems that people face in their development, from childhood to adulthood, are the same issues and tasks that the team faces in its evolution.

1. The first stage of Greenspan is homeostasis. This level includes self-regulation, the processes of involvement and exclusion, the formation of attachment and interest in the world. The functioning of the child here rather occurs at the level of reflexes, the child is completely dependent on the parents, just as the team depends entirely on the authorities. Without this support, children have little chance of stable growth and development. Similarly, the members of the team at its child stage are ready to accept the leadership unconditionally.

Here even children familiar with each other can play alongside, but not together, they can learn from each other and have the same goal. But they are not interdependent in substance and do not work towards achieving a common goal. By analogy with adults, they are more suited to the name «Working Group».

A necessary condition for this stage is two-way communication. The transition to the second stage is carried out when the attention of the child is attracted and he shows interest in further interaction.

Thus, at this stage, people get to know each other, learn about the goals of the team and begin to determine their personal role in the team. They quickly set themselves individual tasks, determine what they want to learn from the experience of others, and are polite to each other.

To proceed to the second stage, each participant should be ready to go in contact with another person, draw the attention of others to his person and adapt to the specific characteristics of the perception of other people.

2. Attachment. The second level is formed at the stage of purposeful communication and a complex sense of self. It includes the most basic aspect of all human communication: intentional non-verbal gestures such as facial expressions, sounds, postures, movements of hands and feet, etc. Biologically, a person first learns the system of non-verbal communication — the basic emotional messages about life, danger and safety, acceptance and rejection, approval and disapproval. And words only expand their possibilities.

At this level, the infant absorbs emotional relationships with people. Not yet endowed with verbal speech, he communicates through gestures.

A person learns to recognize positive or negative reactions to their actions. A total failure in the formation of a pattern of interest in the human world can lead to autistic phenomena.

Like a baby, the group forms emotional interest, a sense of synchronism, establishes acceptable standards of behavior. A person evaluates the perception of various experiences of other people (joy, comfort, dependence, self-affirmation) and builds his attitude in the context of intense emotional relationships with others. People in the group are full of enthusiasm and motivated to work. The formation of the team begins.

3. Stage of somatopsychological differentiation. By the third stage, the infant develops the need for targeted communication, based on emotional attachment. The key goal of this stage is the development of cause-effect relations and a purposeful mutual exchange of signals. The sphere of the child's communication changes, the transition from the proximal to the distal mode (from direct body contact to contact at a distance using non-verbal signals) is observed. The arising intentionality of actions presupposes the formation of the behavioral «concept» of the I, somehow influencing others.

A person already understands how to communicate with other people. The group can already differentiate internal relations, which are formed in connection with certain patterns of behavior.

4. Stage of the organization of behavior, initiative, and internalization. Desire, intention, action are organized into complex interactive patterns, coordinated using feedback on the channels of sensations. The child makes the first attempts to independence, purposefully separate from the mother. At this stage of development, the child develops a complex functional sense of the Self, the capacity for greater awareness, expectation, and activity planning. [4]

Functional use of words and role-playing or symbolic game are used interactively to convey desires or intentions, feelings and thoughts. Common meanings for communication participants are used to express desires and feelings in a role-playing game, and to categorize meanings and solve problems in logical reasoning. Common meanings mean the transfer of ideas and not just the possession of them.

At this stage, it is important to teach a person not only to accept the ideas and comments of other communicators but also to develop their own understanding of events.

This is the level of distribution of functional roles. Already knowing the capabilities of each participant and their emotional relationship to each other, the team can organize effective work of people.

5. Creating representation. At this level, there is the ability to construct mental (psychic) representations of other people and inanimate objects. A child can mark and interpret the feelings of others l, not just actions. There is an organization of affective-thematic patterns at the level of meaning, and language ability and speech develop. The child forms an inner world consisting of representations of experience. The child has the opportunity to solve life's problems in the mind, symbolic expression of feelings, impulses and their corresponding regulation.

The group has a complex relationship, where each person can assume the feelings of others if he does not cope with the task entrusted to him or will not perform his role effectively. The person feels the response. The team stands for the achievement of a common goal and maintains positive relations within the team as a pledge of productive work.

Like the previous stages, this stage can be very short, almost invisible, or very long.

6. The last stage in the Greenspan model is the representational differentiation. At this level, the child's self-image is formed according to the categories of space and time. The child distinguishes himself «yesterday», «today», «tomorrow», and compares it with a changing self. The task of parents at this stage is to correctly interpret the child's ideas so that he does not confuse reality with the imaginary world. [4]

At the group level (as the infant begins to see himself apart from the other), each team member is able to assess the work done by himself, regardless of the work of the whole group. A person can determine what he has influenced in the work of his colleagues and, conversely, what they have influenced.

Although this sequence of stages in the DIR model is typical and, therefore, predictable, these steps do not follow strictly one after another and often overlap each other. These stages do not have clear boundaries of development, they can occur continuously or develop in parallel. The development of both the child's ego and any team is an individual process, and the characteristic features of the stages can coexist in various combinations, creating unique opportunities for positive change.

Thus, the path of the internal formation of the team does not happen automatically. The path can be long and arduous and some teams do not pass it through to the end. Using the Greenspan model, we clearly see a single principle of development of the child's ego-functions and a team. Having passed all six stages in its development, a child can become a full-fledged person, and indifferent people become a team.

Applying this model to a separate group of people, we can see in which area there is a violation, and try to adjust the work of the team. This will identify the ways in which the team will mature and reach the peak of its productivity and achieve synergy, carrying out tasks together with greater efficiency than if everyone did it individually.

A team that is aware of its problems and is ready to adapt or changes its roles in order to use its best features or to compensates for its weaknesses is in an advantageous position.

References:

1. A. Bolotova, O. Molchanova. Developmental psychology and age psychology. Tutorial. — Litres, 2016.
2. S. I. Greenspan. The development of the ego: Implications for personality theory, psychopathology, and the psychotherapeutic process. — International Universities Press, Inc, 1989.
3. T. D. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva. Effective team: steps to create. A guide for those who want to create their own team // SPb.: Speech. — 2003. — P. 58–71.
4. Ya. I. Koryakov. The Development of the Ego in the Description of Stanley Greenspan // in The Urals Psychoanalytical Herald. — 2002. — T. 1. — P. 99.