| Summary: | This thesis is an autobiographical exploration of the process of learning and teaching in Higher Education. The use of autobiography and its importance as data in providing sovereign accounts, transformative experiences and opportunities for theory building are examined. Group work theory and practice from the sociological perspective of National Training Laboratories and the more psychoanalytical Tavistock Institute approaches are compared and contrasted. It is concluded that these are mutually illuminating. Drawing on apparently different experiences of working in and with groups, firstly with secondary school English classes and then with adult students following postgraduate courses in university, the thesis explores the process of becoming a group worker, recognising the differences, and then accounting for the transition, between teacher control and learner autonomy. The advantages and disadvantages of learning to become an independent and an interdependent learner through individual and shared approaches to experiential education are examined. Among the conclusions reached is that learning is an anxiety-raising activity for both students and tutors, but that the anxiety is a prerequisite that has to be managed rather than minimised.
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