Weekly group therapy

The issues that bring us to therapy are often to do with how we experience ourselves in relationship with others – how we experience and who we become in the many 'groups' in our lives - family, friendships, social groups, professional groups. Feeling unloved, lonely, unrecognised or misunderstood; feeling love, connection and loss, anger or rejection – all occur in relation to these 'groups'.

A therapy group gives us a chance to interact with other people in a safe environment, and explore who we are in relationship with others. It may initially feel like an odd idea that being open and vulnerable with a group of strangers is possible and even therapeutic. But it is precisely because it is a group of strangers who we are very unlikely to meet outside the boundaries of the group, that we are able to give ourselves permission to explore and express feelings that we would not do in our ‘real’ relationships.

The group acts as a microcosm of our relationships in general. By re-experiencing relational problems with others who are there with the same goal as us – to understand themselves better and address their own challenges – we can be helped to understand what is going on with us, and have a chance to let new patterns of relating emerge.