Expansion of the Open Area (Johari Window) and Group Work Directed to Enhancing the Level of Subjective Well-being

Abstract

Open and healthy communication plays an important role in the determination of human relations. While people are interpreting the bodily feedbacks given by the people they are communicating with to understand their intentions, they rely on the information they give about themselves; that is, their explanations about themselves. The Johari Window technique is the technique that supports the creation of trust in interpersonal relations, as well as the elimination of problems arising in the communication used in counseling processes. According to this technique, the area including an individual's behaviors, attitudes, feelings, experiences, skills or clear information about how he/she looks is called the open area. This area’s being broad plays an important role in the individual’s developing close relationships with other members of society, in his/her happiness or in his/her living positive emotions. In many studies, it was determined that both the physical health and psychological health of the people who shared their knowledge about themselves were positively affected. The purpose of the current study is to expand the open area of the group members participating in nine-session group work by using Johari window so that their understanding and awareness of themselves can be improved and their understanding of others can be enhanced and they can be enabled to see interpersonal differences. The study group of the current research is comprised of 12 students; 5 females and 7 males, from the Department of Psychological Counseling and Guidance who participated in the study on a volunteer basis. In the current study, in order to collect data, the Psychological Well-being Scale, which was developed on the basis of Ryff's (1989) psychological well-being model and the Johari Window Evaluation Form developed according to the model proposed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham were used. According to the posttest results obtained at the end of the study, it was observed that the open areas of the university students participating in the group work were expanded and their scores taken from the sub-dimension “positive relationships with others” of the subjective well-being increased.