GROUP THERAPY
Many of the challenges people bring to individual therapy also emerge in their relationships with others.
Group therapy offers a unique opportunity to experience those patterns as they unfold and to explore them in a supportive and thoughtful environment.
It is not simply a place to talk in front of other people.
It is a space to better understand yourself through your interactions with others.
Why Group?
Group therapy is a confidential weekly meeting of people who share a common goal: becoming more self-aware, emotionally intelligent, and capable of creating deeper, more satisfying relationships.
If you want to understand and improve the way you relate to partners, friends, parents, children, or colleagues, group offers something individual therapy cannot. Rather than only talking about your relationships, you have the opportunity to experience them in real time: noticing how you connect, withdraw, accommodate, compete, protect yourself, misunderstand others, and allow yourself to be known.
Who Benefits?
People interested in :
— Recurring relationship difficulties
— Loneliness
— Emotional expression
— Interpersonal growth
— Deeper self-understanding
Learning Through Experience
Group therapy is an active experience where members learn about themselves through authentic interaction with others.
Honest Feedback
Group members often provide perspectives that are difficult to access elsewhere, creating opportunities for greater self-awareness and emotional growth.
Shared Humanity
Many people discover they are far less alone than they imagined.
What Happens in a Group?
The groups I facilitate are process-oriented, meaning our attention is directed toward the interactions, thoughts, and emotions that emerge within the group itself.
My role is to facilitate the conversation and help members bring the emotional and relational dynamics of their lives into the group, where we can understand and work with them together. This might include a stressful situation at work, a conflict with a partner, friend or family member, or something positive that is happening in someone’s life.
I encourage members to share their thoughts and feelings as openly as they can, including their reactions to one another and to what is happening in the group. We get curious about those reactions: Why am I feeling this way? Is this familiar? What happens when I express it rather than keep it to myself?
I pay particular attention to thoughts and feelings that are unpleasant, uncomfortable or socially risky to say out loud, because these are often the ones that create the most difficulty in our relationships. Feeling annoyed, bored, jealous, insecure or competitive, or having critical or judgmental thoughts about someone, can all become useful material for the group. Rather than treating these reactions as something to get rid of, we try to understand what they are communicating and what happens when they can be expressed directly.
I also encourage members to get curious about their behavior in the group. Frequently arriving late or missing meetings, becoming quieter or more withdrawn than usual, changing the subject, or pulling away from other members may reflect feelings that are difficult to recognize or put into words.
My job is to help bring those feelings into the conversation so they can become more conscious, understandable and available to be expressed. The group becomes a place to practice doing something different with them, and to use what is learned there to build more satisfying relationships both inside and outside of therapy.
Nearly everyone arrives to their first group wondering whether they’ll belong. That uncertainty is part of the beginning.
Inquire about an open group.
I lead three weekly groups: a coed group, a men’s group and a gay men’s group.
Joining a group begins with an individual conversation to discuss what you are looking for and whether the group might be a fit.
I meet with all prospective members twice. These sessions are 50 min long and treated like a regular therapy session.
If you are ready to join a group, reach out to set up a time for the first session.