When Conversation Is Not Enough: How Art Reveals a Group’s Hidden Dynamics FA

We often assume that many problems would be resolved if the members of a group could talk more—and talk more rationally—with one another. My experience working with groups, however, has shown me that some problems persist precisely because we are not yet able to speak about them directly.

Everyone knows that something in the relationships is not working, but no one can name it clearly. One person is afraid of being judged. Another hides their disagreement to preserve the peace. Some people speak more than others and gradually become the group’s dominant voices. The members appear aligned, yet beneath that appearance, fear, resentment, competition, or mistrust may be circulating.

In such a situation, direct conversation is not always the solution, because the same fears and power relations that created the problem also enter the conversation. The important question is: how can we see and discuss something for which we do not yet have clear language?

Rosemary Reilly’s research offers a thought-provoking answer: sometimes art can enter the conversation before words do.

Table of contents
  1. When a group looks fine but does not actually function well
  2. Art as a mirror for the group
  3. From finding a culprit to seeing the pattern
  4. What does neuroscience add to this picture?
  5. Art is not there to make the meeting prettier; it is there to make reality visible
  6. Group learning does not happen only inside individual minds
  7. Primary sources

When a group looks fine but does not actually function well

Rosemary Reilly, a professor at Concordia University, examined four cohorts of graduate students in a study titled Improving Cohort Functioning. The students studied in relatively stable groups and were expected to learn and share experiences together over a two-year period.

A cohort model can support trust, collaboration, and deep learning. But keeping people together in a group for a long time does not necessarily improve their relationships. Sometimes the opposite happens: constraining roles take shape, some people are marginalized, conflicts remain unresolved, and collaboration gives way to competition or avoidance.

In Reilly’s study, some students feared being judged or rejected. Others did not express disagreement because they worried that doing so would damage their relationships. Groups sometimes presented themselves as a “happy family,” while genuine safety and intimacy were missing underneath the surface. Dependence on the professor—and sensitivity to the professor’s evaluation—also changed how members behaved.

The important point is that these difficulties were not simply traits of a few individuals. Reilly treats the group as a living system made up of recurring patterns of interaction. If one person is consistently silent or another has disproportionate influence over decisions, we should not immediately label one as weak and the other as domineering. We should ask what pattern has formed across the group and how each member, consciously or unconsciously, helps sustain it.

This shift in perspective matters. As long as the problem is attributed only to an individual, blame, defensiveness, and resistance become more likely. Once the pattern itself becomes visible, collective change becomes possible.

Art as a mirror for the group

Over five years, Reilly worked with 73 students across four cohorts. Based on their interests, students participated in activities such as poetry, collage, mask-making, puppetry, and clowning. The aim was not to teach artistic skill or produce beautiful work. They were invited to express their actual experience of the group in an artistic form: fears, conflicts, unspeakable subjects, power relations, and patterns that interfered with learning and communication.

Mask-making, for example, gave members a way to show the distance between the group’s public appearance and their own experience of it. Collage helped reveal visible and hidden relationships. Poetry made it possible to express fears and feelings that might have seemed too personal or vulnerable in ordinary conversation. Performance and puppetry allowed themes such as power, dependence, and fear of conflict to be seen through metaphor—and sometimes humor.

After the works were created, they were displayed in a shared space. Group members viewed them, discussed their reactions, and tried to make collective meaning from them. Art was not only a means of expression here; it became data about the life of the group and then a starting point for intervention.

To me, the most important development happens at this point: art takes the problem out of individuals and places it in front of the group. Instead of saying, “You make it impossible for me to speak,” members can look at a mask, image, or performance and ask, “What does this work show us about our relationships?”

The artwork creates a third object—something between “me” and “you.” The feelings remain real, but they are no longer thrown directly at another person. That distance can reduce defensiveness and make a more honest conversation possible.

Reilly uses a concept close to “aesthetic distance”: a position between being overwhelmed by emotion and retreating into entirely cold, rational analysis. Art allows people to see a feeling without becoming completely submerged in it. That is why they may be able to discuss subjects that had previously felt too threatening, shameful, or ambiguous.

From finding a culprit to seeing the pattern

The important result of the research was not that difficult feelings disappeared or conflicts were resolved forever. Reilly herself stresses that the experience was not a magic wand. The main achievement was that the groups found a way to see and discuss their own difficulties.

Members were able to recognize patterns such as avoiding disagreement, fearing judgment, depending on formal authority, hiding feelings, and maintaining an unrealistic appearance. The quality of their conversations deepened, and some realized that they too—each in a different way—were helping create the situation.

The group’s perspective therefore shifted from blaming an individual to observing a systemic pattern. This was not only a theoretical insight; it also increased members’ sense of agency. They recognized that the experience belonged to them and that they could help create a different form of relationship.

Art did three things at the same time:

  1. It made something hidden or vague visible.
  2. It made it possible to discuss sensitive subjects with less defensiveness and blame.
  3. It moved members from being passive observers of the problem to being participants in change.

This finding matters for anyone who works with teams, organizations, or learning groups. Many group interventions move too quickly to solutions: they write communication rules, define roles, or ask members to speak more transparently. But until the hidden pattern has been seen, formal solutions may merely tidy the surface of the relationship.

What does neuroscience add to this picture?

The report Neuroeducation: Learning, Arts, and the Brain, which grew out of a Johns Hopkins University summit supported by the Dana Foundation, approaches the relationship between art and learning from another direction. In the report, researchers in neuroscience, psychology, education, and the arts examine how artistic practice and learning may relate to attention, memory, emotion, cognition, and learning.

The report needs to be interpreted carefully. It does not claim that every artistic activity necessarily improves every cognitive or social capacity. Much of the evidence discussed is correlational rather than proof of a causal relationship. Even in studies of music, fifteen months of training was associated with changes in brain structures and skills closely related to the practice, but at that stage there was no clear difference in transfer to more distant domains.

Still, the Dana report identifies several useful possibilities. Active participation in the arts can engage attention and may relate to the executive attention network, part of the systems involved in concentration and self-control. Art also moves learning beyond a purely intellectual activity by bringing emotion, sensory experience, and meaning into it. Parts of the report discuss the potential of theatre and role-play to support perspective-taking, empathy, emotion regulation, and social abilities, while also emphasizing the need for further research.

These findings do not “prove” Reilly’s work at a neural level. Reilly’s participants were adults, and her study was not designed to examine brain function. The Dana report does, however, help us consider why arts-based methods may create a different quality of attention and learning.

In an ordinary conversation, people often try to defend their position, answer quickly, or interpret another person’s behavior. Creating and viewing an artwork changes the form of attention. A person has to pause, observe, remain with ambiguity, and accept that more than one meaning may be possible. In role-play, they must temporarily step away from their own point of view and see the world from another position. These processes may create conditions for self-regulation, cognitive flexibility, and empathy—the same capacities required for a healthy group conversation.

Art is not there to make the meeting prettier; it is there to make reality visible

When we talk about using art in group work, it is easy to imagine a few entertaining activities intended to energize a meeting. Reilly’s research concerns something more serious. In this approach, art is not decoration, a break between discussions, or a tool for making people feel good. It is a way of knowing an experience that has not yet become available in direct language.

A team could create a shared collage to represent its current condition. Members could design two masks: one for the image the group presents and another for the experience taking place behind that image. They could perform a recurring conflict as a short scene without referring directly to particular individuals. Even a simple metaphor—“What is our team like right now?”—may reveal information that several hours of direct discussion have failed to reach.

But completing an artistic activity is not enough. Its value emerges when it is followed by a safe, facilitated conversation:

  • What do we see in this work?
  • Which part feels familiar or uncomfortable?
  • What pattern keeps recurring among us?
  • How does each of us help sustain this pattern?
  • What is the first small action we could take to change this relationship?

The facilitator must also make sure that art does not become a tool for diagnosing personalities, psychologically interpreting individuals, or forcing people to disclose feelings. The point is not to judge the maker of a drawing by interpreting the drawing. The point is to let the work open a collective conversation about experience and relationships. Participation should be voluntary, and the group must be safe enough for the process. Otherwise, the very activity intended to support expression may intensify vulnerability.

Group learning does not happen only inside individual minds

For me, the central connection between Reilly’s research and the Dana report is this: learning is not a purely intellectual and individual process. Attention, emotion, the body, meaning, and relationships all participate in it.

The Dana report suggests that art can change how people attend, experience, and make meaning. Reilly’s study shows that when this capacity enters a group, it can reveal relationships and patterns that directly affect learning. If a person fears being judged, part of their attention is directed toward self-protection rather than learning. If a group avoids conflict, differences in perspective—which could become a source of learning—become a threat. If only a few voices are heard, the knowledge the group creates will necessarily be limited.

Art can change this condition, not because it always creates calm, but because it can sometimes help a group face an uncomfortable reality without immediately retreating into blame and defensiveness.

Perhaps this is art’s most important work in a group: making visible what exists between us but has not yet been seen. Once we can see it, we can think about it; and once we can think and talk about it, choice and change become possible.

Primary sources