Depression – Group Therapy

Transcript

Group therapy typically consists of between four and 10 patients and between one and two therapists. Group therapy can be used to treat a wide variety of patients, patients suffering from depression, from anxiety, from PTSD. Group therapy can often be very helpful because you get the social support from all the other patients in the group to sort of understand that you’re not alone in this journey. The things you’re experiencing other people are experiencing too. Also, when you’re in group therapy, people can give you advice on, Hey, I dealt with that. Here’s how I dealt with that. Group therapy can often be a less expensive alternative to individual therapy. However, oftentimes patients will see individual therapy as well as group therapy. Group therapy can either be process-based or skills-based. Process-Based group therapy focuses on people sharing their experiences with one another and talking about how they feel about those experiences. Oftentimes it can be very cathartic to hear other people speak about their issues as well as being able to speak about your issues to other people. Skills-Based group therapy is much more focused on learning skills to cope with specific issues such as depression or anxiety. When deciding between a skills-based or process-based group, it’s important to consider where you are in your journey. If you’re just getting started, maybe a skills-based group would be good for you to learn some coping skills for your anxiety or your depression to manage it and then maybe you might consider going to a process-based group. Group therapy is a very popular form of therapy and there may be one closer than you think. Talk to your doctor or therapist about a group therapy that might be the right fit for you in a private practice, clinic, or hospital setting.