Group Therapy
“People who are successful in group are successful in life.”
At first glance, that sounds like an extraordinary claim. How could spending ninety minutes each week with a small group of people change the way someone lives? After nearly fifty years of participating in psychotherapy groups as both a member and a leader, I have come to understand more clearly how this change takes place—and what becomes possible when people undertake this work together. This process can be broken down into six stages:
We grow up…
Many of us emerge in adulthood able to be only a portion of our full selves. Traumatic experiences, losses, disruptions in families, and rejecting or critical parents can lead us to shut down some feelings and needs while others seem to run amok. Social isolation, whether it originates in our families of origin or in social structures and cultural oppression, can lead to shame and alienation. All of these experiences can create problems in relationships with others.
We become partial versions of ourselves.
Whatever brings people to a therapy group, they come hoping that something in their lives can become better. You may join a group simply because your individual therapist thinks it would be a good idea. You may have a friend who had a good experience and has inspired you to give it a try. You may be ready to put into practice some of the growth you’ve experienced in individual therapy.
Regardless of what leads you to join a group, your patterns of relating to yourself and others begin to appear in the group itself. The difference is that, instead of simply repeating old patterns, these patterns can be explored, understood, and gradually transformed. As you discover new ways of connecting with others, the confidence and resilience you develop in the group begin to appear naturally in relationships outside it.
Groups teach people how to recover the parts of themselves that were never allowed the space to grow. How do they do this?
Groups welcome every part.
One thing many people notice when they join a group is a sense of emotional permission…to cry, to be angry, to feel envy, to feel desire, to laugh, and to notice how the body reacts to the emotions in the room. As these experiences are shared, explored, and understood, many people feel that a group is able to provide acceptance and connections they couldn’t receive in their families. The group helps you recover pieces of yourself.
At first, permission does not necessarily mean participation. Members may watch others take emotional risks long before they are ready to do the same. Gradually, however, something that once had to remain hidden—a feeling, need, fantasy, grievance, longing, or fear—can be spoken and received by other people. What had been carried privately begins to exist in relationship.
A disowned part becomes a welcomed part.
Welcomed parts become valued parts.
When members bring in tears, envy, heartache, irritation, and love, they find others who feel the same way, or maybe others who feel differently. Obstacles to connection can be seen and worked with instead of remaining trapped in repetitive patterns.
Take someone who feels embarrassed because she cries too much:
She enters the group thinking:
I’m too emotional.Then someone gives her a gift, saying:
I wish I had access to tears like yours. I can’t feel anything.
Nothing changed externally, but everything changed internally. Her tears became evidence of an ability to access deep feeling rather than proof of a defect.
Take the man who was abused by his father:
He entered the group thinking:
I shouldn’t feel this. My anger can harm others. Others can harm me.The group said:
Your anger is valuable. Let us help you express it in ways that can be heard. Let us join you in the feeling. If you can say it, you may help me say it too. We do not merely survive; we become stronger.
The invitation to bring all feelings into the room does not mean that members always feel comfortable, reassured, or joined. Some of the most consequential moments in group come from receiving difficult feedback or hearing reactions we believed we could not bear. When conflict emerges, members can learn to remain in relationship long enough to understand what happened, learn from it, and discover that anger, criticism, or disappointment can lead to greater resilience.
Members begin to discover that the feelings they considered shameful or dangerous may also contain information, vitality, sensitivity, strength, or a longing for connection.
Valued parts become integrated.
Over time, these feelings no longer seem like foreign or dangerous intrusions. Tears, anger, longing, vulnerability, and desire become parts of the self that can be understood and used. They do not have to be suppressed, nor do they have to run the show. They become available.
Whole people live differently.
Groups help us reclaim ourselves. Not invent ourselves. Not improve ourselves. Reclaim ourselves. People feel less alone. People feel more compassion for themselves and others. Vulnerability becomes a source of connection. The group’s emotional welcome and effort to understand each other gradually become part of our inner world, strengthening what I call the valuing self—the part of us with enough insulation to withstand the slings and arrows of life while remaining open to what is nourishing and sustaining.
People are not broken. They are often living from only part of themselves. Healing happens when relationships make it possible to reclaim, trust, value, and integrate the parts that had to be left behind. Step by step, inch by inch—sometimes in deeply painful ways and sometimes in touching and nurturing ways—groups can help us grow into ourselves.