ABSTRACT
Most every group will have at least one person who is a “disturber,” an individual who is pressing and persistent in ways that consistently disrupt the group, the process, and the leader. Such individuals are frequently the catalyst for much hair pulling, sweat, and anxiety for the leader. The tendency to diagnose and look for ways to suppress or remove such group members is very high. The DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) is full of labels that will find a home with these people. When I used to work with seriously disturbed adolescents in a residential treatment setting many years ago, oppositional defiant disorder was a very frequent and popular diagnosis. What this translated into is that the identified teen did not agree with staff on a frequent basis, and that this disagreement took a very disagreeable form. Although we have a whole new set of labels now, I believe we are still up against the same problem. We still have those who are disturbing in the world and in our educational and psychotherapy groups.
