What is Group Therapy?
Group therapy, by design, works to create a collaborative, supportive, and confidential environment where peers and a group facilitator can process overarching topics.Â
Group therapy takes time to become effective as the group itself needs to adjust and build trust amongst participants. Trust and safety develop over time and this is supported by consistent attendance and participation from all members.
What Will I Learn in Group Therapy?
Group therapy supports recovery through various avenues. Some of these include:
- Increasing interpersonal skills
- Setting and maintaining boundaries
- Building relationships with others in recovery
- Obtaining vital feedback from others
- Increasing insight and perspective to similar challenges
- Ways to maintain recovery
What Topics Are Off Limit in Group Therapy?
Group counseling is not always confidential. People give their verbal and written consent to not share confidential information, but people are not perfect. Group therapy is not for reprocessing trauma or sharing your deepest darkest secrets. That is what individual therapy is designed for.Â
What Topics Can be Discussed in Group Therapy?
As mentioned above, most topics are appropriate for group if they are talked about from a higher-level perspective. For example, sharing the effects of growing up in a tumultuous household is more appropriate than sharing the granular details of what occurred in the home you grew up in. Below is a list of possible topics that can be discussed but can include others:
- Impacts of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) on life
- How people respond to trauma
- Negative effects of anxiety
- Unhelpful ways people have coped with stress
- Ways people find meaning in life despite mental health symptoms
- Thinking about the past too much
Can Group Therapy Help?
Group therapy can act as a sounding board and normalize certain life experiences. Often, when we experience stress, mental health symptoms, or a TBI, we feel like no one understands what we are going through. This is not always the case. In fact, many people have experienced similar events in their lives. Group therapy is a place where these shared experiences can be discussed and utilized to create resiliency and support recovery.Â
Can Group Therapy be Virtual?
Yes, group therapy can be done virtually. Accessibility to treatment has greatly expanded over the last few years to support virtual group therapy sessions. This allows people from across the state of Colorado the opportunity to engage in group therapy services.Â
Does Revitalize Mental Health Offer Group Therapy?
Revitalize Mental Health currently offers virtual group therapy sessions throughout Colorado. Some treatment groups are general psychotherapy and coping whereas others specifically pertain to certain challenges, for example, TBIs. If you or someone you know are interested in starting group therapy submit a form here. Group therapy operates best when someone is also engaged in individual therapy simultaneously. Â
