Thanks to Chang Duong for making this photo available freely on Unsplash
Benefits of Group Therapy
If you’ve ever experienced Residential treatment of any kind (for Substance Use Disorder and/or Mental Health), group therapy sessions have likely been a common part of your experience. If you haven’t, you might not be sure what to expect or whether it might be a good fit for you to process which ever challenges you may be experiencing at the moment with a group of strangers. It may feel vulnerable, scary, or just plain awkward. I’m not going to pretend that’s not part of it, but group therapy settings can also be incredibly beneficial for a number of reasons:
Community: oftentimes when we experience any kind of suffering, we feel isolated and alone in that experience and/or we actively isolate ourselves from our friends and family (and their support) out of guilt, shame, trying to protect them from your pain, fearing they would not understand (and perhaps they don’t or wouldn’t), and/or out of self-punishment. Often being around others who have a shared experience can reduce the isolation, decrease the sense of guilt or shame, and provide us with a group of other people who can resonate and relate to our struggles. And sometimes that can be everything; just to know you are not alone.
As Ted Lasso once said, “Because I promise you, there is something worse out there than being sad, and that is being alone and being sad.”
Accessibility: I understand that finding mental health care right now can be a nightmare, both due to affordability and availability. Without going off on any tangents about insurance versus private pay versus community mental health/non-profit options, etc., I will just acknowledge that seeking regular mental health care can get expensive. Furthermore, another current challenge is finding a therapist that meets all your needs AND has openings in their schedule to take on new clients. When you join a therapeutic group, you are sharing the time and space with other group participants, which means accessibility to the mental health care you need at a decreased rate, as well as allowing the therapist to increase the capacity of their caseload. While you may not be getting individualized care, group dynamics offer up a whole host of other opportunities for growth and healing…
Alternative Opportunities for Growth and Healing: when you participate in an individual setting, the therapist and the attention is focused on you, which has its benefits. But in a group, you are faced with a new set of dynamics to adapt to. This can open up opportunities for growth and healing such as practicing new skills related to communication styles, mindfulness, empathy, healthy boundaries, effective listening, conflict resolution, etc. These opportunities to practice our skills in a therapeutic environment (with the support of the therapist present) can then translate in feeling more prepared to utilize these skills in your “real life”. Additionally, another participant’s story or insight may resonate with your own experience in a way you would never have gotten to on your own. So you also have the benefit of multiple perspectives to gleam from.
You Never Know What You’re Gonna Get: Regardless of what topics the therapist has prepared, when you put 5-10 people together to talk about a particular topic (or in the case of process groups, no particular topic at all), you can never anticipate how the conversation might go when you introduce multiple perspectives, life experiences, insights, and ideas to reflect on the same topic. This can be enlightening, exciting, triggering, moving, and helpful to wrap your brain around a new topic or skill. No two groups are ever alike, and it also helps to keep the therapist on his/her toes ;)
As someone who has facilitated many therapy groups in my day, I can say with all certainty that I always enjoy it! The energy is so different compared with an individual session. And group therapy can be a great addition/support to individual sessions and/or a great alternative when individual sessions may not be available to you.