Most people are bad at this, and reasonably so: almost nowhere in adult life is it safe to practise. You get one attempt with a colleague or a partner and the stakes are real.
A group is a rehearsal space where it’s expected, where the other person has consented to it, and where a clinician is present. That’s unusual enough to be worth using deliberately.
The move that does most of the work
Speak about your own experience rather than about them.
“You’re dismissive” is a verdict. It’s arguable, it invites a defence, and the conversation becomes about whether it’s true.
“When you said that, I went quiet and stopped wanting to say anything else” isn’t arguable. It’s your experience, it’s specific, and it gives them something to work with rather than something to rebut.
Nearly everything else follows from that one distinction.
The rest of it
Be specific and recent. “Just now” beats “you always.” A pattern named without an instance can’t be examined.
Say it to them. Not to the leader about them, and not in the third person while they sit there. That distinction matters more than it sounds and groups slip on it constantly.
Leave room. Say it, then stop. The urge to soften it with three qualifications usually removes the content entirely.
Include the good version. Feedback isn’t only correction. Telling someone that you relax when they speak, or that something they said stayed with you, is frequently harder to say and lands harder.
What stops people
Fear of causing damage. Almost always overestimated. In a well-run group the person isn’t fragile, the leader is present, and the group can hold it.
Fear of retaliation. That they will say something back. They might, and that’s the exchange working rather than failing.
Not wanting to be unkind. Worth examining. Withholding something true because it might be uncomfortable is a choice to keep yourself comfortable, and it’s frequently the same thing you do everywhere else.
And the honest one: not being sure whether it’s about them or about you. Say it anyway, with that attached. “I don’t know if this is mine, but…” is a legitimate and frequently productive opening.
Why it transfers
This is the skill members most often report using outside the room — with a partner, a manager, a parent.
Not because they learned a formula, but because they have now had the experience of saying a difficult thing to someone and having the relationship survive it. Which is the belief that was actually in the way. Conflict followed by repair is where that gets learned.