TRAINING GROUP PARTICIPANTS' COMMUNICATIVE SPACE CHOICE AS DEMONSTRATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL READINESS FOR PERSONALITY CHANGES

Psychotechnology specialists' careful attention is now paid to group work forms (psychological training, psychotherapy groups, group meetings, etc.). Having pursued a mini-study (within a year with different types of Tomsk organizations: sales managers, university graduates, students, pupils, HR managers, etc.) we found that (with their groups experience summarized) only 20-25% of participants really changed the behaviour in 3 months after the training. Studying the role of various factors in the effectiveness of the training program for the participants (such as the environment, the emotional work involvement, anxiety level in the group, the time of training, etc.) we concluded that one of the most important factors was the training participant's psychological readiness for personality changes. Readiness for personality changes is considered by us as a personal ability to cope with the anxiety that occurs as a reaction to the situation of uncertainty, to make an authentic and congruent choice, rather than that associated with the fear and protective emotions, to use personality changes as a challenge. We assume that readiness for personality changes can appear in characteristics of the communicative space, which the participant chooses during the work (participants he or she joins, whose words he or she reacts on, whom he or she considers to be an authority). This knowledge can be used as a diagnostic material, and taken into account when conducting psychological training in general. To test the hypothesis it was necessary to select a group in which personality changes could be measurable and obvious, therefore, from the variety of training groups, we chose the overweight correction group, because within this group it is possible to precisely measure the extent to which people are ready to change (after all, to make the process of losing weight effective people have to change their usual food style and, as a consequence, life style (give more time for themselves to the detriment of the usual activities and concerns). The study showed that there is a definite choice pattern of the communicative space of the training group participants, depending on how much a participant is ready for personality changes. And the higher his/her personal willingness to change is, the more comfortable location he/she chooses, giving the priority not to the environment, but to his or her personal boundaries. Undoubtedly, research in this direction must be continued to determine the factors influencing the readiness for personality changes. And that will improve the effectiveness of the training activity. After all, there are still many unsolved questions. Is it possible to increase group members' readiness for personality changes? Is it the task of the psychologist or the choice and responsibility of the client? Are there any other peculiarities in choosing communicative space? Is there a difference in the grounds of communicative space choice in other target training groups, or are they universal?