Many clients balk at the idea of group therapy. The image is awkward: a circle of folding chairs, sharing your problems with strangers, one person rambling for too long. The reality, when run well, is closer to the most useful conversation you've had in years.
Why Groups Work
Some things you can't get from individual therapy, no matter how good. In group, you experience:
- Universality. The deep recognition of 'you too?' that breaks the isolation of believing your struggle is uniquely yours.
- Real-time interpersonal feedback. Other group members will tell you things a partner or friend wouldn't, and it lands differently coming from peers.
- Practice. Group is a low-stakes laboratory for the relational skills you're trying to build outside it.
- Witnessing. Watching someone else do their work changes you. So does being witnessed doing yours.
Types of Groups
Not all groups are alike. The big categories:
- Process groups. Open-ended, focused on what's happening in the room and in members' lives. Excellent for relational patterns.
- Psychoeducation groups. Skill-building around a specific topic — DBT skills, anger management, parenting. Structured, time-limited.
- Support groups. Shared experience around something specific — grief, recovery, LGBTQ+ identity, chronic illness. Less clinical, often peer-led.
- Skills groups. Like psychoeducation but more practice-oriented.
What to Expect Your First Time
You won't be put on the spot. Most groups have a brief opening structure (check-in, prompt) and let conversation develop from there. You can stay quiet your first few sessions while you get a feel for the room. Groups are confidential, the same as individual therapy.
Group Plus Individual
For many clients, the ideal is both. Individual sessions for the deeper trauma work and personal patterns; group for the interpersonal practice and the not-aloneness. They reinforce each other.
Specific to LGBTQ+ Clients
An affirming group of LGBTQ+ peers can be one of the most valuable experiences in therapy, particularly for people coming from less affirming environments. The implicit message — this many of us, all healing, all here — is hard to overstate.
If You're Curious
Group can sound intimidating until you've been in one. We're happy to talk through what's running at our practice, what might be a good fit, and what the experience is actually like. There's no pressure to commit.