132 Helping Group Members with Maladaptive Communication curriculum, and ask them to review the activities/content and the focus of the specific session that you will role-play in class. Divide the class into two groups: members and group workers. Have the “workers” engage in the tasks associated with the session: checking in with members (which can involve asking them about the previous week’s session), introducing the session’s purpose, explaining the session’s activities, and ending the session. Ask the “leaders” to work collectively on each task, and then have the “members” provide feedback about the efforts of the “worker.” Alternatively, you can have the students engage in a more conventional role-play, in which some of them enact the role of “member” and you (or another student) takes on the role of “worker.” Addressing Maladaptive Relationship and Communication Patterns Begin the discussion of maladaptive roles in groups using a lecture format. Introduce students to the maladaptive group roles (monopolist, scapegoat, clown, silent member, and so on) and their functions. You can use students’ experiences in the classroom to help them understand some of these roles, since many of them will have been in classes with a monopolizer, a class clown, or a student in another maladaptive member role. While these dynamics are handled differently (if at all) in the classroom, students will easily be able to appreciate their disruptive or beneficial impact. 1. Using one or more of the case examples presented early in the chapter, in which the group leader mishandled or overlooked a maladaptive process, explore with students the transactional nature of these roles and patterns, the function they serve, and intervention strategies. Ask students to describe any experiences they have had or observed with these maladaptive dynamics in their group work experiences in their practicum. Then ask students to cri- tique how the dynamics were or could have been handled. 2. It is possible that many students may have only limited experience with the group modality in the field and may not have observed or encountered any of the maladaptive processes described in the chapter. Alternatively, they may have observed these processes being handled in an unhelpful manner. The following scenarios can be used to help students understand the dynamics and how to intervene effectively. Divide the students into three groups and assign one of the scenarios to each group. a. It is the sixth week of your support group for caregivers who lost a loved one to AIDS. During the last three sessions, you have noticed that Jack, whose brother died of AIDS, has been demanding more and more of the