An Encounter group is a form of group psychotherapy that emerged with the popularization of humanistic psychology in the 1960s. The work of Carl Rogers (founding father of person centered counseling) is central to this move away from psycho analytical groups towards the humanistic encounter group // Psychotherapy is a range of techniques based on dialogue, communication and behavior change and which are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family). ... Humanistic psychology is a school of psychology that emerged in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. ... Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an influential American psychologist, who, along with Abraham Maslow, was the founder of the humanist approach to psychology. ...

Such groups (also called "T" (training) groups and "sensitivity training" groups) explored new models of interpersonal communication and the intensification of psychological experience. The first groups were experimental efforts by health researchers and workers, trying to move away from the "sickness" groupwork model used in the psychiatric industries of the time. In later years, these pioneering groups evolved into educational and treatment schemes for non-psychiatric people. Interpersonal communication is the process of sending and receiving information or communication with another person. ... Psychology is an academic or applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. ...

Similar to most therapeutic, educational and treatment tools in the human resource industries, the treatment staff, researchers, writers and clients of these groups tended to be YAVIS persons: Young Attractive Verbal Intelligent Successful.^{[citation needed]}

A commercialized strand of the encounter group movement developed into Large Group Awareness Training. Large Group Awareness Training or LGAT is a term popularized in the American Psychological Associations 1986 draft DIMPAC report and also by Margaret Singer in her 1996 book Cults in our Midst to describe intense commercial trainings by non-psychologists which from the outside may resemble group therapy. ...

Insert non-formatted text here==Further reading==

• Encounter Groups, Carl Rogers, 1970The Encounter group ephasis is upon personal growth.