The Existential Dimension in Group Counselling: How to Use LEGO Bricks as a Scaffolding Tool

This research was presented at a workshop at the IAEVG-conference in Bratislava
2019. The research investigated the significance of the existential dimension in
group counselling for young people who have been assessed as; “not ready for
education”. Jan Tønnesvang's vitalising model (Tønnesvang & Hedegaard, 2015)
and his psychological theory is the conceptual framework. Through video
recordings and focus group interviews, conclusions have been reached about,
partly the potential of group counselling and partly what significance it has for
young people to focus on the existential dimension in connection with career
counselling.
The main conclusion of the research is that group counselling to a large extend is
preferred over individual counselling by these young people. They find that it
makes them feel more secure and braver to be in counselling sessions together
with other young people. But the video observations also made it clear that there
need to be a very distinctive facilitation by the counsellor in order to come
deeper into the existential dimension and to fully take advantage of the group
dynamic.
In order to support the existential dimension, it became evident in the study that
scaffolding tools were needed as some of the young people had difficulty
reflecting based alone on questions from the counsellors. ‘LEGO –
BuildToExpress’6 became such a scaffolding tool and together with a special
question frame inspired by the vitalising model (Tønnesvang & Hedegaard, 2015)
such a support for the existential dimension was created.