Reflections and new ideas after the 1st intervention
At the end of the summer I finally had the opportunity to form a focus group of four people and conduct my first intervention, using a game of ' you draw, I guess ' to get people to open up and have the courage to face their negative emotions in the first place.
Fortunately, the overall response to the overall process of the first intervention was positive and gave me a lot of information on how to apply my research in practice and develop the next steps in my research plan.
Expectations or worries of the test group collected before the intervening event
The test group expressed their approval of the game format "You Draw, I Guess", which most of them had played with their friends when they were children, and said that the format was designed to make them feel more secure in facing the topic I had chosen, "Do you have the courage to face your 'shadow self '?
Some participants also expressed curiosity about the negative emotions of others and a little concern about exposing their vulnerable side.
My notes and reflections on the process
As I had prepared a lot of inspiring psychometric questions and background information, when everyone started the activity and did the drawing and cutting, and pasting, it was clear that they were much more relaxed than they had been before the activity started, and they all participated seriously in the creation and actively guessed the events drawn by others. The interactive nature of the activity and the fairness of the design for everyone to participate made it a very lively event.
The most unexpected and rewarding part of the event was actually my own reaction. As the initiator of the event, I thought I should lead the way for others through my own actions, so I told a story about a mistake I had made as a child that I regretted, which I had never told anyone before and had kept buried deep in my heart, and I couldn't stop crying as I recounted it.
This reaction of my own was an "unexpected event" that I had not expected when I designed my previous activities. From my own personal experience I am more convinced that facing my negative emotions and 'shadow self ' bravely is the first step to healing them, making me feel even more that my project is worthwhile and for that reason, I am going to study more systematically and more deeply into this field.
Feedback from the test group collected after the event
I got some thought-provoking feedback from a female participant who said that although I had designed the experience to be relaxed enough, she was worried about the impact on her social image as the participants were people she knew in real life (after all, not everyone wants to be as emotionally out of control in front of others as I am!). So she chose to describe only the lesser degree of negativity.
This feedback has prompted me to think about what I will upgrade and iterate on in the next intervention based on this feedback.