Group Therapy - Whats the Go?

During the years I spent under the care of my Anxiety Disorder Service I was fortunate enough to be offered a place in a 12-week group therapy programme for generalised anxiety disorders with around ten other patients of the service. While I was inpatient at a ward for eating disorders, I attended group nutritional exposure outings to local cafes to test our rules around eating and type of foods we can eat. When I was discharged from eating disorder services, I attended a recovery support group run by a private specialist in the mental health field. All three of these group therapies offered and added something different to my recovery that individual therapy and exposure alone could not.

1. Anxiety Programme

This group was offered by the public-funded anxiety services and explored many anxiety-related issues – generalised, social, panic, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorders – within a setting of 10 others and two professionals. What was involved? There were four main components to each group. The first was goal setting about what realistic outcomes we wanted to achieve through the course, and breaking them down into simpler steps. Second was weekly reflections – what went well, what didn’t go well, and what challenged us, along with tracking mood and anxiety ratings with surveys. Lastly, we had exposure therapies which took up the bulk of the sessions. Each week would cover a different topic and would test some of us more than others – this could be answering and making calls, talking aloud in front of people, looking at people’s eyes/face when communicating, going into enclosed places, raising our heart rate through exercise, as well as mindfulness, breathing, and relaxation techniques. This was a pretty intense course – a 3-hour session each week – and you fell absolutely drained by the end of each session, but there were true benefits of the course. If you didn’t achieve the goals you set in the first lesson you were at least well on your way to getting there. There were a range of people attending these groups – young adults, parents, students, men, and women – and we all suffered from different forms of anxiety-related disorders so were able to support each other and offer guidance for when others felt weak. You knew you were never alone, and that someone was always there to offer some form of valuable advice and support for you.

2. Nutritional Exposure Outings

These outings were pretty hard for most of those in attendance – we patients would go out with the ward’s occupational therapist once a week to a random café of their picking to order a drink and food item for our morning snack. I can image we looked a bit odd from strangers looking in – a group of people being coerced and forcibly encouraged to keep eating a seeming delicious and tasty baked good. I know for me, I would commonly feel like shitting myself in the lead up to the outing, shake and shut down during the exposure, and the rest of my day usually went pretty badly… BUT – it did me a damn good service by pushing yourself to do things you could not have done alone; you could not back out, you could not make excuses or compromises, you just got stuck in and did it. Everyone was in the same boat, with the same rules – so as time went on the nerves lessened and you actually began to enjoy having decent drink that was hot rather than juice or fizz, and a snack that wasn’t nuts, a sandwich, or a mass-produced slice/biscuit.

3. Mental Health Support Group

This was such a nice change from service-provided groups mentioned before – there was zero obligation to attend, no obligation to talk, no need to sensor yourself as much as you previously had. The runner of the group had gone through their own mental illnesses as well as studying in the field, so not only were they book-smart, they also had the experience which added to them knowing what to say and what not to. We met once every month, in a private room in a local community centre, and there was no set structure or topic for each session – we just had a good chat about anything and everything, not always mental-illness related. As much as a therapist, friend, or family member is – sometimes you just need to have the option of spinning a yarn to someone who you knew would not go running to your mother or your treatment team if you decided to vent about your present treatment.

So – there you go. Three very different sorts of group therapies with three very different goals, and three very different experiences. However, they were all able to bring about a common theme that individual therapy cannot – you are not alone in your struggles however real that may feel to you. Other people do have similar struggles to you – and yes, they live in your neighbourhood and not just within the walls of a treatment centre. If you are ever offered the option for group therapy, I would strongly recommend considering it – even if you really don’t like the sound of it at the time. Remember, you can always give it a few tries and stop if you still aren’t feeling it. Therapy does not always feel good when it is working well – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

Your friend,

Rawing Meg xx