In this insightful book, Beverley Costa explores the crucial role of the group facilitator in shaping reflective groups that can move beyond disorganised and stagnant group dynamics, contain anxiety and foster meaningful change.
How can we create spaces where people can truly think together—especially when emotions run high, voices are unequal, and disagreement feels risky? Facilitating such spaces requires skill, ethical courage, attentiveness to power and boundaries, and a willingness to stay present when conversations become difficult. This practical, ethically grounded guide shows how reflective groups can be facilitated with care, confidence, and fairness, even in complex or divided contexts. Drawing on real cases examined from multiple perspectives, it invites readers to reflect on voice, power, positionality, and collective responsibility. Not everyone in a group feels equally entitled to speak. Some hesitate, unsure whether their voice is welcome; others may assert a strong right to be heard. These dynamics influence whose knowledge is valued and how power takes shape. The book explores how such tensions can be recognised and worked with compassionately, without reinforcing inequality. Groups tend to return to familiar ideas, mistaking repetition for insight. The Art of Group Facilitation shows how facilitators can raise awareness of this drift, hold uncertainty, and keep reflective practice alive.
Drawing on decades of real-world experience, the book offers clear frameworks, case examples, and practical tools for professionals in education, healthcare, social care, law, journalism, community and humanitarian work, and other relational fields—anyone who recognises the power of people thinking together.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction 2. Reflective Practice 3. Holding the Frame 4. Psychological Safety Part 1 Part 2 5. Leadership and Facilitation 6. Supportive Leadership: Facilitation in Practice 7. Being Disappointing 8. Power and Group Dynamics 9. Making Difficult Decisions 10. Support-Challenge Continuum 11. Training Facilitators of Reflective Groups 12. What Was the Point?
About the Author :
Beverley Costa is a psychotherapist, trainer, supervisor, and founder of Mothertongue and The Pásalo Project. For over three decades she has facilitated reflective groups, pioneering therapeutic work across languages, and training thousands of professionals internationally. She is a Senior Practitioner Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading.
Review :
“This is the type of book I want to have on my desk and look through it every now and then, to remind myself, to reassure myself, and to look for ideas.”
Zora Jackman, MCIL CL MITI DPSI,Tutor on the public service interpreting programme, Cardiff University.
“At a time when division and disconnection are increasingly visible, the book offers something both modest and radical: a workable approach to collective reflection that supports professional integrity, resilience, and ethical judgement, while helping groups remain engaged with difference, disagreement, and complexity in ways that deepen understanding and sustain meaningful change.”
Professor Andrew Reeves, Emeritus Professor in Counselling Professions and Mental Health.
“The Art of Group Facilitation: Difficult Conversations and Reflective Practice is an exceptional guide for any group facilitator interested in holding difficult and deeply reflective conversations.”
Mamood Ahmad, UKCP Psychotherapist, tutor and author.
"The directness, compassion, practicality, playfulness and conviction of the work, and the organisation of the material, produces a beautiful clarity, a luminosity, and space for the reader to think. The sense of a lifetime of crafting is palpable in the writing. And it helps the reader to face many things in the world right now that are completely alarming.
The book offers both stabilisation and accommodation – room to breathe, tools to use (intellectually, emotionally, practically)."
Professor Teresa Murjas, Department of Film, Theatre & Television, University of Reading.
"This book’s exploration of how languages, minoritised experiences, identities, cultures, and other considerations feed into the power dynamics of a group is vital. It dismantles their impact in a way that I know rings true for a range of my peers in various contexts.
Beverley's sharing of her own doubts and uncertainties are invaluable in modelling the self-honesty that a facilitator needs in this work. This is powerful, It serves as an invitation to the reader to bring the same self-honesty and curiosity to how they relate to situations like this."
Sumaya Bakhsh, Journalist.
"Humanity is – as ever – divided. But – as always – there is more care than conflict. Taking advantage of that reality, Beverley Costa uses 30 years of professional experience – some productive, some negative – to help all who foster understanding, as their work or through goodwill, to enable disparate groups to communicate honestly, safely and effectively in an ethical framework. Those dialogues may not prevent wars. They can, and do, overcome anxieties and antagonisms."
Neil Kinnock.
"The content is rich and thought-provoking, and it prompted me to reflect on my own workshops and research. I particularly appreciated how present and approachable Beverley’s voice is throughout — it conveys a real sense of guidance and support, which I think is one of the book’s real strengths. Above all I want to say how much I love the clarity, depth, and warmth of Beverley’s writing."
Dr Sally Rachel Cook Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London.
"This fascinating book is a very different read to the usual textbook. It feels so warm, honest and personal with a real sense of the author coming through sharing their incredible knowledge and wisdom in a really unique way. The description of actual dilemmas and how they addressed them (and could have addressed them) is an incredibly helpful way to learn both the group facilitation skills but also the reflective skills and gentle self-acceptance that the author models so powerfully throughout the book. There is so much rich learning in here that could be taken away and applied in a range of contexts such as general therapeutic encounters, clinical supervision and our interpersonal lives in general."
Dr Richard Thwaites, NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and CBT Therapist.
"In the time of spiraling polarization, can we still talk to each other across political, emotional and linguistic divides? Costa’s captivating book on the art of difficult conversations, written for practitioners of group therapy, deserves a much wider audience, for it inspires hope and offers practical strategies for creation of safe spaces, reflection and bridging of the divides."
Dr Aneta Pavlenko, Author of Emotions and Multilingualism (2005).
"The Art of Group Facilitation is full of well-grounded practical wisdom that is also strongly rooted in knowledge of group dynamics, leadership and reflective practice. The theoretical material is presented in a digestible way, the book being structured to enhance the reader's understanding in relation to well-chosen, practice-oriented themes - I particularly appreciated the chapters on 'Holding the Frame', 'Psychological Safety', 'Being Disappointing', and 'Making Difficult Decisions'. There is also a wealth of clinical illustrations throughout the book to guide and inspire those planning to start facilitating groups, as well as providing meaningful opportunities for reflection and deeper insight for experienced facilitators. Some key concepts are weaved throughout the book and have stayed with me in a way that I know will enrich my own group leadership work - 'dynamic safety', 'intelligent empathy', 'compassionate inadequacy', 'kind courage' - highly recommended!"
Dr. Aisling McMahon, Assistant Professor in Psychotherapy, Dublin City University, Ireland.
