- What is group therapy?
- What are the goals of group therapy?
- What can I expect to happen in a group?
- What will I get from attending?
- Will the group be confidential?
- What should I do if I want to apply to join the group?
- Where will it be and for how long?
- How many people will there be in the group?
- How much will the group cost?
- How do I find out more?
- Testimonials
What is group therapy?
This group is a place to explore and learn about who you are, how you relate to others, and how you relate to the wider world. It is generally suitable for people who have already experienced individual therapy.
Being in a therapy group offers a unique opportunity to explore and share and support others with personal themes as they arise in the here and now of the group meeting. Most of our personal wounding happened in relationship and relationship can be profoundly healing; we will attend to relational processes in the group, inviting creativity and curiosity into how we relate to ourselves and others.
Members will have the opportunity to explore thoughts, feelings, wishes, longings, reactions, and experiences as they arise. Typical themes include intimacy, isolation, anger, anxiety, difference, joy, fun, shyness, shame, guilt, grief, loss, belonging, love, fear, spirituality, and sexuality. This group can provide therapeutic work in itself or provide additional support to the work of individual therapy.
What are the goals of group therapy?
Individuals may come to the group for different reasons but typically groups can offer the following:
Mutual support and valuable feedback
Experiences that can improve interpersonal relationships and communicating, for example talking honestly and directly about feelings
The opportunity to experiment with new interpersonal behaviours
Developing a sense of capacity and maturity in relating, as one gains insight and understanding into one’s own and others thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. These changes can come about by looking at relationship patterns inside and outside the group.
Building greater self -confidence as outmoded self -images and expectations in relationship are challenged, resulting in changes that can be witnessed by others in the group and the expectation that this learning will also influence one’s life outside the group.
What can I expect to happen in a group?
As in all therapy, building trust and safety is of primary importance. Once the group has formed and is experienced by participants as supportive it becomes possible for group members to feedback to each other in respectful and constructive ways.
Participants are encouraged to talk about any personal or relationship issues relevant to the problems and goals that led them to therapy. Emphasis will be placed on examining the relations between members, as they arise in the here-and-now. Members will often be asked to share their impressions of one another in a constructive way and without judgement or blame; their thoughts, fears, and positive feelings. Disclosure about oneself is necessary for you to get the most from group therapy, but you should disclose at your own pace and there will be no pressure to do so.
The group is not a place to impart or offer advice to others, but more to share from your heart, who you are, to experiment with being more fully yourself. When we hear others disclose from their heart’s similar feelings or experiences to our own, we feel less isolated and more in touch with the world. There is huge potential in confiding in, and ultimately being validated and accepted by others.
For example, if you grew up with parents who were over-burdened and depressed, you might have learned to make no demands, suppress your independence, and subordinate your own needs to those of others. This ‘desirable self’ may then cause difficulties in intimate relationships in life. Group therapy might be your first opportunity to disconfirm this rigid and limiting interpersonal road map. The rigid negative beliefs we hold about ourselves, unconsciously turn into response and behaviours that confirm our fears, and unwittingly solicit the rejection we fear. Expressing new behaviours e.g., sadness or anger and finding that people don’t react in the way we feared and dreaded, and discovering we are still accepted, and welcome can be tremendously empowering and stabilising.
Relationships with group members outside of the group are not encouraged, this keeps the group a social laboratory and ensures that exclusive relationships or cliques do not develop. In this way the therapy is helped.
What will I get from attending?
Research suggests that people tend to value …
- Discovering and accepting previous unknown or unacceptable parts of myself
- Being able to say what was bothering me instead of holding it in
- Other members honestly telling me how I impact them
- Learning how to express my feelings
- The group teaching me about the kind of impression I make on others
- Expressing positive and negative feelings towards another group member
Will the group be confidential?
Confidentiality is an essential part of what makes a group work. Without it there is no real safety and no real basis on which to trust. It is an essential component of a therapeutic relationship.
There is an understanding in the group that confidentiality is at the heart of our contract with each other; we agree to hold others material and membership of the group in confidence and they in return reciprocate. We are at liberty to discuss our own material with whom we choose. others can simply be referred to as “A member of the group”, if there is a felt need to refer to others at all.
Having said that, it is also important to recognise that if one discloses information that suggests children, vulnerable others or oneself may be at risk of serious harm, the group facilitator or other group member may decide this cannot be kept in confidence and that it needs the input of others outside of the group such as doctors, psychiatrists, or social services. Similarly, if one discloses certain criminal activity, it will not be possible to maintain confidentiality.
What should I do If I want to apply for the group?
If you are interested in joining the group, you can email James on jameshodgkinson1@gmail.com, for an informal chat, or for an introduction session together so I can better understand what you are seeking from the group. This in-person meeting is for you to meet me, to be able to make a more informed decision as to whether you would like to proceed or not, and for me to get a better understanding of of the group is the right place for your therapeutic needs. The fee for this meeting will last 50 minutes and will cost £60.
Where will it be and for how long?
The group will meet on a Monday evening from 6.45-8.45pm.
How many people will there be in the group?
The group is between 3-8 people.
How much will the group cost?
The group costs £47.50 per weekly session.
How do I find out more?
Please send me an email.
Testimonials
"The idea of joining a group was scary, in a way that I was sure it will challenge me but unsure what I will gain. And scary it remained, but I kept going back because it was the best thing I’ve ever experienced. Despite having been in therapy for years, I’ve learned so much more about myself, experienced, tried and communicated feelings I’ve never thought myself capable, and although I’ve only spent a year with James and the group, in that short time I’ve seen more growth in myself than ever before. Life-changing, a phrase not to be used lightly, and yet the only one that expresses my feelings. Throughout James has been warm, kind, caring and introspective. Not a week goes by that I don’t think of my time with the group”
Maja, 2024
