Benefits of Group Therapy: 5 Rewarding Aspects
If you are seeking therapy, one-on-one sessions are not the only option! Individual therapy can be hard because the one-on-one setting can create pressure and intimidation, making it harder to be vulnerable.
One-on-one sessions can also feel like a weird dynamic — you may experience loneliness in your struggle since you are the only one there with your therapist speaking about what you are going through.
Group therapy is an alternative option to individual therapy and has many different benefits to your healing journey and growth as a person. Let’s learn more about what group therapy is and the different benefits of this option for mental healing.
What Is Group Therapy?
Group therapy is a specific type of therapy where you attend a session with five to fifteen group members and spend a little time focusing on each person’s struggle. The sessions usually take place weekly, last for one to two hours, and involve one or two psychologists or licensed social workers as the group facilitators.
Facilitators may use various evidence-based treatment methods as part of group psychotherapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Group therapy can be open — which means that anyone can join the group at any time during the session period — or closed, which means that once the first session starts, no new members may join the group. Regardless of group size or session attendance restrictions, each session period typically focuses on a particular theme of struggles.
For example, you can attend group therapy for anger management issues or struggles with family life. You might also attend group therapy to help cope with addiction, substance abuse, relationship trauma, or for mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder, social anxiety, or other anxiety disorders.
There are many different group therapy session themes, and you should talk to the group facilitators before signing up so that you can enroll in a group whose struggles most align with your own. There are even different skills development groups, such as a small group that practices coping skills together.
Often, group members attend therapy to supplement individual therapy. However, some people just as easily prefer to only participate in group therapy to support their mental health.
Is Group Therapy Effective?
With group therapy, you give up some of your own focus to listen to others and participate in empathic listening, active learning, and growth together. Even though there is less time devoted solely to your struggles, many other benefits arise in the process.
The effectiveness of group therapy depends on you and your support preferences as a unique individual. Psychologists report that their clients are often surprised by how effective group therapy is for them and that group therapy often exceeds clients’ expectations in a good way.
However, whether group therapy will be effective depends on your preferences. If you are someone who enjoys many different perspectives, then group therapy could be a great option. However, if you prefer more personalized, one-on-one interactions and learn more effectively from individualized advice, individual therapy sessions might be the better route for you.
What Are the Benefits of Group Therapy?
There can be many benefits of learning and healing together as a group. There are many different advantages of group therapy, including the opportunity to develop a support system, relieve feelings of isolation, practice relational healing, find your voice, and exercise a more affordable option for therapy.
Let’s explore each of these benefits a little bit more in-depth below.
1. Develop a Support System
Group therapy allows you to develop a support system because you not only have support from a therapist, but also a whole network of people who are also struggling and who chose a group setting to help each other out.
Attending group therapy might feel awkward for the first few sessions as you are getting to know everyone, but once you feel more comfortable around each other, it often feels like a safe space where you want to open up. The group setting creates an incredible opportunity to bond and establish a strong support network.
Additionally, once you develop a support network within your group, you can learn more about yourself and gain insight into your personality and feelings through others’ eyes. Because there are multiple different perspectives, backgrounds, and conflict approaches in the group, you can garner multiple options for how to approach the best treatment method.
2. Relieve Feelings of Isolation
When you attend individual therapy, it can often feel like you are the only one going through this struggle. However, a group setting where other attendees are there for similar struggles can help alleviate your feelings of isolation.
Group therapy shows you that you are not alone in your struggles or feelings because you experience first-hand that other people are going through similar struggles.
The commonality that group therapy brings can help promote socialization and interpersonal learning and foster a sense of belonging and comfort. Belonging through these social interactions can foster trust, which can help you share even more to gain more insight about yourself through others.
3. Practice Relational Healing
When you relate to others, you can often find more strength to heal because you have things in common with your peers and can trust that they understand what you are going through.
This relational healing also encourages accountability in your healing journey — healing takes work and intentionality. When you can all relate to each other’s emotions together, achieving your goals may feel more feasible and approachable.
4. Find Your Voice
Talking through struggles together in a group setting can feel intimidating at first, but once you feel more comfortable and confident in speaking up, this platform becomes a great way to find your voice.
Group discussions promote communication, social skills, and self-confidence. You can use your group members as a sounding board, during which group members use each other’s similar experiences to come up with different treatment plan options together.
Group treatment discussions can help you practice how to verbally express how you feel in an effective way in person, which feels both productive for healing as well as empowering for your self-esteem.
5. Affordable Therapy Alternative
Group therapy is an affordable alternative to individual therapy, so it could be a great option for you if you want to seek out therapy but cannot afford one-on-one sessions. The one-on-one aspect that individual therapy involves takes more time and effort and is, therefore, more expensive.
How Can Ketamine Therapy Help?
Many people attend group therapy to supplement their regular therapy sessions and healthcare visits. If you are considering group therapy, you might consider ketamine therapy as a supplementary treatment option.
The psychedelic therapy found in ketamine from Nue Life is a remarkable and innovative treatment. Ketamine for depression is a very effective treatment with minimal side effects, and many depression patients feel relief from their symptoms within 24 hours of their first ketamine treatment.
Nue Life offers ketamine in the form of a simple pill that you can take in the comfort of your own home with virtual supervision. This way, you can have your ketamine experience in a comfortable and familiar environment.
We offer integration groups in all of our treatment programs which are led by Integration Specialists. While these experts are not therapists, they can greatly help you process the sensations you may experience during ketamine treatment.
The Bottom Line
Group therapy is a type of therapy that occurs with five to fifteen people and one to two psychologist facilitators. Participating in therapy in a group setting is a more affordable alternative to individual therapy, and the group setting yields many benefits that individual therapy cannot offer.
Group therapy can help you gain more confidence, socialization, and communication skills to find your voice and experience relational healing. Group therapy can also help relieve feelings of isolation and is a great way to develop a support system so that you can grow together with people going through similar struggles.
With group therapy, you can gain a new perspective about yourself through others and take back your healing today so that you can become your best self for your unique mental health journey.
Treatment at Nue Life
Nue Life believes in holistic treatment, which means that what happens before and after your ketamine experience is equally as important as the experience itself. We want to ensure you have meaningful takeaways from your experiences and help you establish positive new neural pathways.
That’s why we provide one-on-one health coaching and integration group sessions with each of our programs. We’re here to help map out the mind and body connections in your brain and help you discover the insights that lead to true healing.
Sources:
An introduction to group therapy | APA
Cohesion in group therapy | APA
The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy | The British Journal of Psychiatry
