Psychological exercises for trainings

The percentage of people who take part in psychological groups is increasing throughout the world. In our country this phenomenon is also quite common. Which is understandable - life in our time requires the processing of large amounts of information, increased resistance to stress, and the ability to adapt to new and not always favorable conditions of the social and natural environment. Meanwhile, just as playing sports allows you to keep your body healthy, working on your own psyche is necessary in order to remain in good psychological tone.

Elements of psychology are also added to the most diverse training programs. Almost no training for adults is complete without psychological exercises or games. They solve both specialized and general problems related to personal development.

Let's consider these forms of work on developing one's own potential, as well as some psychological exercises useful for developing various psychological abilities of a person in more detail.

What is taught in psychological trainings

Psychological training is a group form of working on oneself - with one’s behavior, capabilities, limitations, rules and problems. In it, participants learn to adequately perceive themselves, adapt to the conditions of society, develop their own potential and abilities, and interact with others. The target audience for such classes is very diverse. Psychological trainings are conducted for:

persons with addictions, somatic diseases, neuroses - within the scope of clinical psychotherapy;
mentally healthy people - with the aim of helping in self-development and regardless of age (in kindergarten, school, in an organization).

Based on this, their primary task is to improve a person in terms of social adaptation, communication skills, and instill personal, socially useful individual skills. In this connection, you should come to them only voluntarily and with the attitude of “realize-change.”

You can work on yourself in many areas, both personally and professionally. The following areas of psychological training are distinguished:

“I - I” are aimed at change at the personal level.
“I – Others” implies changes in interpersonal relationships. Participants are encouraged to seek data regarding, for example, the impact of their behavior on others, or the manner in which they communicate with others.
“I am a Group” is focused on changing the personality of each participant as a member of social society.
“I am the Organization” - focused on a specific individual - a member of a large organization. His experience of interpersonal interaction (communication) in conditions of intergroup competition, conflict and cooperation is considered.
“I am a Profession” are focused on the subject of a specific type of activity - they explore his feelings, aspirations, life values that he receives and realizes in the conditions of his professional activity.

Within the framework of this typology, in the specialized literature there are many classifications of psychological training. They differ both in the tasks they solve and in the methods of implementation. Here are just some of their types.

Self-regulation skills development training. These include auto-training and biofeedback training, widely used in the rehabilitation of various pathologies. They develop the ability to control and manage the state of their own body and emotions.
Communication trainings. They teach how to solve problems that arise in the process of communication - interpersonal or business, and teach behavior in various situations. So, those who experience difficulties during a job interview, or know that it’s time for a salary increase, but are embarrassed to tell their bosses about it, should come here.
Trainings that stimulate personal growth. The principles of their implementation were laid down in the 50s in the USA, when working with groups of dependent and emotionally unstable people. They were helped to increase self-esteem, become more relaxed, develop charisma, etc. Today's participants also realize and overcome their complexes. Here they will be “pulled out” of all unconscious fears, relieved of internal barriers, after which they will be taught to more adequately assess their abilities, notice their mistakes when communicating, and will also help develop certain facets of personality such as self-understanding and the ability to perceive other people.
Educational trainings. They develop specific skills necessary primarily for professions related to communicating with people. These are trainings for teachers, psychotherapists, trainers, managers, as well as trainings for sales, negotiations, and team building.
Social and psychological trainings. These are a kind of life lessons in a softened form. Here they teach the intricacies of interaction in a social environment and learn to cope with difficult life situations.
Business trainings. Aimed at modifying or developing business knowledge, skills and attitudes for the successful implementation of business tasks, increasing the efficiency of production activities, business interaction, and increasing the organization’s profits. Among them are trainings of professional skills, or corporate trainings, which are aimed at improving the professional skills of workers - both experienced and beginners; as well as trainings for professional and personal growth aimed at identifying external and internal resources for professional self-development of employees.

Ultimately, group members are helped to understand themselves, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and also learn to understand others, correct their behavior, and become more successful in their professional activities or life in general.

Popular exercises

In psychological practice, there are a large number of exercises that can be divided into separate groups depending on the purpose:

development of communication abilities;
improvement of memory - visual, spatial, short-term, long-term, olfactory, selective;
increasing self-esteem.

Each type has many separate exercises, which differ in the way they are carried out, but are aimed at achieving the same goal.

To improve communication abilities

A common problem is difficulty communicating with other people.

Such individuals do not know how to make new acquaintances, experience difficulties in communicating with colleagues and management, and experience discomfort when being in society.

To develop communication skills, you can use different techniques.

Retelling

Procedure:

The participant remains alone in the room, reads the text from a sheet of paper and tries to remember it.
The next participant enters the room. The first person tells him what he managed to remember.
The next participant is invited into the room, to whom the second person tells what the first person told him.

The number of stages depends on the number of participants. At the end, an analysis of the source text and information that reached the end of the chain is carried out. The procedure teaches people to communicate and shows that individuals add “on their own” to the text.

Continuation of someone else's thought

You can perform the exercise alone or with other participants. Such a game must have an announcer (a live presenter or a speaker from a TV or computer). You need to listen to the speaker for 1-2 minutes and think about how you can develop his idea, to what options you can bring it to.

The Mystery of Lewis Carroll

The text of the riddle is “how is a raven like a table?” Two people need to do this exercise. Participants say one word at a time and begin to look for similarities between them.

Dialogue with the mirror

A simple exercise to develop communication skills. Performed alone. You need to go to the mirror and start thinking about something. It is important to express your thoughts out loud. It is necessary to gradually develop the topic, connect sentences according to meaning.

Talking with your mouth full

The exercise develops diction. You need to put a spoon in your mouth and try to pronounce the words clearly.

To improve memory

A simple but effective training for memory development is memorizing pictures. For example, cars, objects, living beings are drawn on a piece of paper. The person must look at the sheet for a few seconds and remove it. Wait 5 minutes and write down on another sheet what was shown in the pictures.

A person must go into detail and describe the color, shape, and constituent elements of the object shown in the picture.

For visual memory

To train visual memory, use the game “Find the Differences”. Similar pictures can be found in magazines, children's books, and the Internet. You need to draw complex patterns, come up with geometric shapes with many angles and connecting lines.

For spatial memory

To develop spatial memory, you need to blindfold yourself and try to walk from the bedroom to the living room or kitchen. It is important to remove sharp objects and cover the corners with a soft cloth.

For short term memory

It is easier to develop short-term memory with the help of pictures in which you need to look for differences. Another option is to open a book on a random page, quickly read what is written on it, and tell it to your interlocutor.

For long term memory

To develop long-term memory, you need to constantly ask questions to yourself. They may concern different periods of time.

For selective memory

To train selective memory you will need 2 or 4 decks of playing cards. They need to be laid out in front of you face down. After that, open cards 2 at a time. If they match, put them aside.

For olfactory memory

To develop olfactory memory, you need to learn to associate a certain smell with an event. This will help you remember information when a familiar scent arises.

To increase self-esteem

To achieve your goal, you need to set realistic goals for yourself every day, achieve them, and write them down in your diary. It is important to learn to ignore failures. Frequent conversations with people who have a positive attitude towards the individual will also help in increasing self-esteem.

Basic Methods

The key principle of psychological training is the combination of various types of activities during classes. They have a lot of communication:

discussions in which participants in group work can express their thoughts on a particular issue based on their knowledge and previous experience, as well as expand, deepen, and sometimes rethink and change them;
situational tasks, which represent a group search for a solution in a particular proposed situation;
surveys, during which participants not only actively participate in the discussion, but also learn to analyze;
brainstorming sessions in which the most daring ideas on the issue under consideration are expressed and discussed.

But the main feature of the training is the use of a large number of psychological exercises and games. They are needed for relaxation, switching attention, acquiring certain knowledge and skills, and creating a comfortable atmosphere. They can also be aimed at finding a way out of difficult situations by communicating with other participants and developing specific communication skills. In addition, psychological games and exercises serve as a tool for managing the group process, and always have a clearly defined goal that meets the needs of the group and the topic of the training.

The number of exercises and games is in the hundreds. Some of them are quite famous, others are simply interesting, but all of them simulate some kind of life situation, through which the participants themselves discover how they can perceive themselves and others differently, what they can change in their behavior to achieve the desired results. Thus, participants in psychological trainings are not taught how to live - they acquire the necessary knowledge and skills in the process of exercises and games.

Types and types of psychological exercises and games used in training.

For acquaintance. Short exercises during which the group and the coach can get to know each other and get additional information about the participant, for example, find out his profession, what he likes to do in his free time, what his temperament is, etc. Such exercises also create an atmosphere of trust in the group and provide emotional and verbal contact between the participants and the leader.
For warming up - short games and exercises with a large content of active movements (jumping, movements of the head, arms, legs, etc.), used at all stages of the training to “warm up” the group by changing the psychological and physiological state of each participant. They also stimulate thinking, promote concentration, and improve mood.
On group cohesion - carried out in the event of the emergence of several informal groups that may interfere with the process, or if there are a couple of leaders in the group who are trying to demonstrate their priorities, or if there is a need to overcome barriers in communication between participants, or when it is necessary to unite group members.
Psychodiagnostic - allow you to “probe” the personal characteristics, emotional state, and development of mental processes of the participants.
Communication – develop communication skills necessary to adapt to the social environment:
speak easily and convincingly;
listen and hear;
have developed intuition in communication;
present yourself effectively.
For the necessary personal changes. This is a symbol for the main, most numerous exercises aimed at developing or demonstrating those basic psychological qualities or skills that the training participants came for:
correctional – aimed at correcting behavior and correcting personal characteristics (aggression, jealousy, greed, etc.) that interfere with social adaptation (especially in childhood);
psychotechnical (psychotechnics) – contain systems of techniques and methods of self-regulation for managing mental and psychosomatic processes.
Body-oriented . Among them, we can highlight relaxation exercises - for relaxation at the moment of group fatigue, breathing exercises (train proper breathing skills), eye exercises, dance-movement and dance-song exercises (relieve the fear of expressing yourself and standing out), as well as non-verbal and pantomime exercises , which help in establishing social contacts.
Entertaining - do not carry a semantic load, but help relieve tension and release emotions.
Rituals for the beginning and end of group work help maintain the community of participants, separate classes from each other, and create a special training atmosphere that is not similar to ordinary life.

In addition to communication, communication exercises and games, psychological training often includes role-playing games, which help to identify errors in communication and behavior and analyze them. They can be spontaneous - carried out without preparation and are focused on current problems at the moment, and plot-based - they solve general problems. In both cases, participants have to play certain roles, which, among other things, contributes to the development of creative potential.

In the specialized literature there is the term “psychogymnastics”, which has a narrow and broad meaning. In the first case, it means all the games and exercises used in the training in which participants communicate through movement. They are aimed at solving group dynamics control problems, i.e. These are the well-known warm-ups.

Psycho-gymnastics in a broad sense is one of the methods of correctional work with children, the main task of which is to teach the child to cope with life’s difficulties. During psycho-gymnastic classes, children are taught to express emotions through movements, facial expressions, gestures, overcome barriers in communication, and understand themselves. Once completed, children express their feelings more easily and understand others better. Psychogymnastics also contribute to the development of character traits such as confidence, honesty, kindness, etc., and the elimination of all kinds of fears, apprehensions, and insecurities.

Types of trainings

Trainings can be individual, group and corporate, their final result is aimed at solving a problem and achieving a goal. The very first founder of training was Dale Carnegie. Now they are becoming a part of modern society; various companies are especially active in conducting them for their employees. Types of trainings:

Skill - training a skill.
Psychotherapeutic – find a solution to a psychological problem.
Socio-psychological – the problem of interpersonal relationships is solved.
Business – for businessmen to increase sales.
Mixed – training a little of all types of training.

What does psychological training give to an athlete?

The psychological preparation of an athlete is no less important than daily hours of training in the gym, pool or stadium. The ability to manage emotions gives an athlete a huge advantage over his opponents. An athlete who regularly works with a specialist and performs psychological exercises is able to concentrate on the goal and is more resistant to stress. After psychotraining, athletes improve the accuracy of movements, the ability to optimally expend energy, and the ability to relax and restore energy in a short time.

As a result of psychotraining, athletes’ attention, perception, and reaction speed improve. The athlete becomes more confident in his abilities, his self-esteem grows.

Psychological training of an athlete is aimed at:

increasing resistance to stress;
mastering the ability to quickly relax and mobilize the body and psyche;
increasing self-confidence through positive thinking and internal dialogues;
improving the ability to concentrate and focus.

Psychological training allows you to increase motivation, teach you to visualize a goal and maintain attention on it until it is achieved.

Recommendations

Advice from psychologists on conducting psychological exercises:

You need to come to training in a good mood. If negative thoughts, aggression or resentment predominate, it is recommended to do breathing exercises and master meditation. An experienced psychologist can teach these techniques.
In unclear situations, it is necessary to clarify the information of interest with the presenter.
Communication with other training participants outside the training rooms should be maintained.

When performing psychological exercises, it is important to be sincere, so that the answers are reliable, the feelings and emotions are real.

Psychological training will help you achieve personal growth, success in your own business, and relationships with your loved one. Exercises allow you to overcome barriers, fears, and doubts. It is important to choose an experienced presenter.