Yesterday I kicked off the MOLLI class on “Evidence-Based Happiness Practices” with a psychoeducational lecture. It was standard information about positive psychology, including Seligman’s 1998 inaugural Presidential speech in San Francisco (I was there!), the three-step emotional change trick, three good things, sleep hygiene, savoring, gratitude, forgiveness, and positive distractions. We started and ended with music, and had five-minutes of very small group interactive discussion in the middle. All-in-all, I thought it was a solid start.

This kick-off reminded me of the complex relationship between structured psychoeducation and less-structured or guided interpersonal interactions. In traditional psychoeducational groups (or classes), the emphasis is on information delivery and participant learning. Psychoeducational groups are especially important when participants can benefit from useful information. Most psychoeducational group leaders, also try to integrate some form of interactive or experiential learning into group sessions.  

For me, despite the fact that I often (but not always) like listening to myself and believe I have good information to share, the MOLLI class highlight (during the whole 90 minutes) emerged right after the very small group discussions. I had given a prompt like, “I know it’s awkward to talk about your strengths, but I’d like you to share a nice story about how your own skills or talents usually come out in your relationships with others.” Participants in the room seemed engaged, but the class was hybrid, and so I wasn’t sure of the overall interaction quality. Rather than quickly moving on, I asked if one or two of the participants would share a highlight from their conversation. Silence followed. I waited through it, and finally, an online participant broke the silence with,

“At first we weren’t sure how to start, but by the end, I thought to myself, I want to be friends with these people.”  

These words broke the ice in the room, and several similarly positive comments followed. What I loved about these reactions to their “talk-time” was that participants were responding in exactly the ways I had hoped, they were connecting with each other.   

The balance of psychoeducational content with interpersonal connection is very cool. Sometimes—as in yesterday’s kick-off lecture—we do more psychoeducation and have less interpersonal activity. Other times, we do a five-minute lecture and follow it with 85 minutes of conversation.

One of my takeaways yesterday is to not underestimate the power of psychoeducation to stimulate conversation. Obviously, we use psychoeducation to teach. But when we use it to direct and focus subsequent conversations, we’re also using it to help people to learn from each other.

And here’s a pdf of the ppt from yesterday: