What Are the Different Types of Group Therapy?

What is Group Therapy?

Group therapy for mental health consists of up to 12 people dealing with a similar issue meeting collectively with one or two therapists. While group sizes tend to vary, sessions will typically last for 1 or 2 hours in which the therapists facilitate discussions, keeping everyone on track and sharing knowledge of the issues being talked about.

This kind of group setting can help create a community or support network that might otherwise be missing from your life. By hearing others’ stories, it can also help normalize your own experiences and put everything you may be dealing with into perspective.

Psychoeducational Group Therapy

There are many different group therapy approaches that may or may not work for you, and one of them is psychoeducational group therapy.

This type of therapy focuses more on the therapists providing education to group members about the specific disorder they have been diagnosed with and outlining coping mechanisms and symptom-management strategies they can use. Therapists, therefore, play a more active role in sessions while group members don’t have as deep interactions as they might have in other groups.

Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy (CBT)

CBT group therapy benefits members by helping them address and modify harmful thought patterns and behaviours. Through discussions, group members are able to better understand themselves and their actions, share coping tools that have helped, and hold each other accountable.

Interpersonal Process Groups

Interpersonal process groups focus on improving the social skills of members. These groups may be dedicated to one particular aspect of social interactions, such as assertive communication, and overall they are less structured since conversations between members are the priority.

Because this kind of group therapy puts more emphasis on building relationships and improving social interactions, groups do tend to be smaller than the norm, with a maximum of 8 members to ensure a more comfortable environment for all involved.

Skills Development Groups

As the name suggests, skills development groups help members learn skills that can improve their well-being and daily functioning. This type of mental health group therapy uses psychoeducation combined with other techniques like CBT in order to help members develop the coping tools needed to avoid negative behaviors or thoughts.

Support Groups

Support groups bring together those who are dealing with the same difficult situation, whether it be grieving a loved one, suffering from a chronic illness or something else, and offer a place where members can draw comfort from one another. Self-reflection and acceptance from other members are at the core of this type of therapy.

Specialty and Experiential Groups

Specialty and experiential groups include activities other than traditional talk therapy, such as music, art, games, and interactions with animals, which help members open up, bond, and process their feelings in a more accessible way that talking doesn’t always allow. This can be particularly helpful for kids or anyone else who may find it hard to express themselves with words.

How to Choose the Right Type of Group Therapy

Choosing the right type of group therapy for yourself can seem like a difficult task, but it really boils down to what you are struggling with and what kind of help would be most beneficial.

If you would rather have more guidance from a therapist and don’t want to talk a lot, psychoeducation or experiential groups may be the best fit. If you are looking for coping mechanisms to help you better your behaviours and thought patterns, CBT or skills development groups would ultimately work best.

If you have a hard time with social interactions, interpersonal process groups can be a big help, and if you want community and a shoulder to lean on while you go through something terrible like grief, a support group is where you should be.