The Benefits of Group Therapy
- Group therapy helps you realize you’re not alone. Hearing from others with similar issues helps you see that you’re not alone in your challenges and struggles. Group therapy reduces isolation and alienation and increases the sense that “we’re all in this together,” normalizing and de-stigmatizing suffering and shame.
- Group therapy facilitates giving and receiving support. When group members share in a safe and comfortable environment, all participants can receive hope, inspiration, encouragement, and sometimes insightful suggestions. Members come to lean on each other for support, feedback and connection.
- Group therapy promotes social skills. Groups not only help to ease a sense of isolation, but also give the opportunity for members to practice engaging and communicating with other people. Groups offer a safe sounding board for one to learn about how they project themselves when around others. In group you can practice being your most authentic you, and see what kind of constructive feedback you get.
- Group therapy is very cost effective. Group therapy costs a fraction of what individual therapy costs. Although group therapy is very different from individual counseling, it is a powerful and therapeutic tool that promotes growth, change, and social and emotional health.
- Group therapy helps you find your voice, and can teach you about yourself. Participating in groups can help you become more aware of your feelings and your needs, and can help you learn how to express them. In group, every person can hold up a mirror so that you get to see yourself through other people’s eyes. It can be a supportive way of uncovering the blind spots that may be blocking your ability to connect to others in meaningful ways.
Dr. Irvin Yalom has done extensive work and research on groups. His famous “therapeutic principles of groups” follow for those that would like more in-depth information.
Dr. Yalom's Therapeutic Principles
Dr. Irvin D. Yalom outlined key therapeutic principles, which are derived from reports of individuals who have undergone group therapy. These principles summarize the benefits of group therapy:
- Altruism: Group members share their strengths and experiences in order to help others. The experience of being able to give something to another person can lift the member's self-esteem and help develop more adaptive coping styles and interpersonal skills.
- Catharsis: The experience of relief from emotional distress through the free and uninhibited expression of emotion. When members tell their story to a supportive audience, they can obtain relief from chronic feelings of shame and guilt.
- Cohesiveness: It has been suggested that this is the primary therapeutic factor from which all others flow. Because all members share a common goal, there is a shared sense of belonging, acceptance, and validation.
- Corrective recapitulation of the primary family experience: Seeing the group as a family may help group members gain understanding of the impact of childhood experiences on their personality, and they may learn to avoid unconsciously repeating unhelpful interactive patterns in present relationships.
- Development of socializing techniques: The group setting provides a safe and supportive environment for members to take risks by practicing interpersonal behavior and improving social skills.
- Existential factors: Group therapy helps members realize that they are responsible for their own lives, behaviors, and decisions.
- Imparting information: Group members report benefiting from sharing information about themselves and one another, such as personal experiences.
- Imitative behavior: One way in which group members can develop social skills is through a modeling process, observing and imitating the therapist and other group members.
- Instillation of hope: Seeing people with healthy coping mechanisms may give hope to those without them.
- Interpersonal learning: Group members achieve a greater level of self-awareness through the process of interacting with others in the group, who give feedback on the member's behavior and impact on others.
- Universality: Sharing an experience with a group helps people see that they are not going through something alone. It also serves to remove a group member's sense of isolation, validate their experiences, and raise self-esteem.