What Makes Group Therapy So Special?
Here at CCCRD, one of the ways we help people is through group therapy. Like individual, couples, and family therapy, group therapy is a particular therapeutic process that provides various benefits to those seeking healing, personal growth, and change. A great body of evidence has shown that, in most cases, group therapy can be just as effective as individual therapy and, in some ways, even more effective.
If you are exploring therapy options, here are some reasons to consider group therapy:
1. Relationship Development
As our name suggests, part of our mission at CCCRD is “relationship development.” A primary benefit of group therapy is that it promotes social engagement. With the assistance of group facilitators, members enter into a process of therapeutic engagement, providing an opportunity to cultivate and strengthen social skills and explore interpersonal experience.
Do you struggle to develop healthy relationships? Group therapy creates a space to talk about things you might not elsewhere—things like what it’s like to be around you, how you come across, and how you might better communicate with others. This sounds vulnerable, and it is! But the group experience ideally makes room to handle these sensitive subjects.
Group members form a bond through the group process that allows them to develop trust, assertiveness, communication, and conflict-resolution skills together in a supportive environment. Group members establish a commitment to confidentiality and group policies to help maintain
2. Mutual Support
Group members form an environment of mutual support and offer the benefits of shared experience. You realize you’re not alone! Relating to another’s experience offers validation and a sense of normalcy that reduces alienation and instills hope.
3. A Learning Experience
There is a lot to learn in a group setting. Observing and listening to others in the group allows members to learn about different cultural beliefs, practices, and ways of looking at or responding to situations. Facilitators sometimes provide information about specific topics and teach therapeutic skills that may benefit group members.
It’s not about advice-giving. Instead, the group can help one another explore options, pros and cons, or alternative responses to problems they are currently seeking to resolve.
4. Focus on the Here-And-Now
What is going on in you right at this moment?
Group therapy is an experiential endeavor, emphasizing what is taking place in sessions at the present moment and exploring thoughts and feelings as they come up. Group facilitators help increase awareness of the here-and-now experience, providing the opportunity to gain insight into factors that make it challenging to show up in relationships in healthier ways.
For example, when someone’s intention is poorly executed or perhaps misunderstood, the group can explore its impact on others. Working through such challenges as they come up during group sessions allows members to practice healthy conflict resolution and new ways of relating and responding to others toward better outcomes.
5. “Corrective Recapitulation of the Primary Family Group”
What did you inherit from your family of origin?
Frequently, group members find that unpleasant, unsatisfactory, or traumatic experiences from their childhood-family experience continue to impact them negatively. Our first group experience as a member of our family of origin shapes our behavior and perception of ourselves and others. In many ways, the therapy group resembles family of origin dynamics, and this provides an uncommon opportunity to view our experience through a more accurate lens and to take steps toward correction.
Irvin Yalom, an expert in group therapy, refers to this process as the “recapitulation of the primary family group”—a unique characteristic of group therapy. Positive psychologist Dan Tomasulo shares one client’s testimony of experiencing group as a “family of destination,” describing the impact of this therapeutic factor in group therapy.
6. God’s Model for the Church
Perhaps the most important reason to consider group therapy is because of its likeness to God’s vision for the church. Believers are called into covenant relationship and fellowship with one another to edify and fulfill the church’s mission. With the help of the Holy Spirit, members experience the benefits discussed in this article and many more. Though imperfect, each person is valuable to the church. In the same way, each member of a therapy group is valuable, even those who may not say much. Every group member counts!
As a group facilitator, I’ve seen this experience transform the lives of group members, and I feel blessed to follow in the footsteps of our founder, Dr. Frank Mancuso, who touched the lives of many through group therapy.
Is Group Therapy Right for You?
Perhaps you would benefit from group therapy as a supplemental resource to individual counseling or as a more cost-effective alternative. We are currently offering group therapy at most of our locations. Let us know if you are interested in group therapy, and we will work with you to find a group that is right for you.