Group psychotherapy Jenny Southall Group psychotherapy is an opportunity to learn from others, gain support from those with similar experiences and share a common goal.

Group psychotherapy refers to any form of psychotherapy delivered in a group format with varying approaches and purposes. Similar to individual therapy, it enables members to grow emotionally and solve personal issues and dilemmas.

However, unlike individual therapy, relationships with other group members assists you in problem solving and confidence.

Participants can learn about themselves, how others view them and the reactions they cause in others, all of which can help them become more self-aware.

Group psychotherapy is often successfully applied to groups of people who share a common goal or concern, for example:

• Victims of sexual abuse
• Recovering drug addicts
• Recovering alcoholics

The group can provide support from shared experiences, while group psychotherapists will be trained in developing group dynamics to illuminate problems. They will encourage trust and acceptance between members, set the ground rules and ensure confidentiality is maintained.

The number of sessions required depends upon the group's makeup, goals, and setting.

Membership may be closed or open to new members. The therapeutic approach employed depends on both the focus of the group and the therapist's approach.

The benefits include:

• The opportunity to experience others coping with, and overcoming similar problems successfully, and at different rates.
• Enormous relief in discovering that others share your experience, alleviating isolation and shame.
• The ability to help others by sharing how problems have been dealt with or overcome.
• Improving your social skills with others.
• Picking up new behaviours from watching how others react to situations (for example, the group therapist becomes a role model of how to express anger safely).
• Learning to relate intimately to different types of people.
• A powerful sense of belonging.

Ideally, group members leave with a better understanding and acceptance of themselves, a stronger ability to relate to others and coping skills.

Group therapy may not be helpful if you are:

• Frightened of other people.
• Find it difficult to trust others.
• Display paranoid tendencies.
• Feel too ashamed to share problems in a group setting.

If you need the privacy, safety or intimacy of a one-to-one relationship, you’d probably respond better to individual therapy in the first instance. It is important that you trust the group leader, and that they are comfortable with the boundaries and limitations of the group.

This article was first published in May 2009.