Kirsten Beuthin, LMFT - Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Group therapy can be a profound and powerful experience. It can help people to overcome personal difficulties that prevent them from achieving satisfaction and fulfillment from their lives. Groups can help with feelings of alienation and isolation, and a sense that no one else feels the way you do. Feedback (not advice giving) from other group members can be a valuable help in sorting out problems.
Over time, group members become a valuable resource for each other. They provide a support network for specific problems or challenges. In meetings, people are encouraged to talk with each other in a spontaneous and honest fashion. The facilitator, who provides productive examination of the issues or concerns affecting the individuals and the group, guides the discussion.
A group also provides a forum to explore feelings about the other people in the group in a safe setting, and then to think about how these feelings are related to one's life outside the group. A group can be compared to being part of a family, where participants tend to take on the roles that they had in their family growing up. You will see rivalry, hostility, envy, anger as well as support, bonding, cohesiveness, concern and helpfulness, all happening in the course of time in a good group. One difference, however, is that a skilled therapist is there to look out for problems and to help the group to maintain a sense of safety for everyone.