Psychology 101: Intro to Psychology

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When an individual has personal problems they want to work on with the help of a professional therapist, they don't necessarily have to do it one-on-one. They could benefit from group therapy instead. When is group therapy a good option?

Though many patients choose to see a therapist individually, sometimes a patient's particular problems are better served by group therapy. Groups can be made up of people who already know each other, like couples or families, or of people whose primary connection is through the group itself. The therapists leading the groups use a variety of therapeutic approaches, sometimes adjusting the style depending on the developing needs of the group.

Mary's been happily seeing a humanistic therapist like Carl Rogers for about 20 years. In that time, she's gotten married to a used-car salesman named Larry and had a son, Chris, who is now a teenager. She's concerned because Chris has been smoking a lot of marijuana. She's tried to get him to stop, but he doesn't listen. He's smoking enough to interfere with his schoolwork, and he doesn't have many friends outside of some stoner buddies. He says that he smokes because Mary is 'too uptight' and puts pressure on him. The situation with Chris is putting stress on her marriage to Larry as well, since he doesn't seem to think it's as big of a deal as she does. Mary decides that it's time the family went in for some group therapy.

In family therapy, a therapist will see more than one family member at a time. Sometimes Mary, Larry and Chris will all go; sometimes it will just be Chris with one of his parents. Family therapy aims to help them work out conflicts that stem from their family roles and their relationships with each other; Chris links his drug problem to his relationship with his parents, so the therapist works on resolving that.

Mary and Larry also decide to try couples therapy, or relationship counseling, to work out problems that have cropped up in how they interact with each other. Larry's dismissiveness of Mary's concerns about Chris makes her think they really need to work on communicating about values and goals. A couple's therapist can help them to practice active listening instead of being defensive when they criticize each other.

Though the family therapist thinks they're making progress in dealing with the stressful relationships that caused Chris to start smoking pot, she also thinks that Chris could benefit from attending a support group like Marijuana Anonymous. While family and couples therapy were kinds of group therapy for people who already have established relationships with one another, MA is an example of a kind of group therapy made up of strangers who share certain psychological disorders or problems. Some of these groups are led by a therapist who admits people to the group based on how they'll fit. Members may be at different stages in dealing with their problem; it can be helpful for those who are less far along to see others who have dealt with and gotten through similar problems. Freud's concept of transference, in which the patient begins to interact with the therapist as if he were an important person in his life, like his father, comes into play a little differently in group therapy. Group members are encouraged to view each other as siblings, friends - whichever relationships are troubling them in real life - and practice communication styles among each other. Members typically share experiences and get feedback from each other, with the therapist serving as a facilitator.

Support groups are organized like group therapy but do without the therapist leader. Like in therapist-led group therapy, members share their experiences and help each other work through problems. Mary, Larry and Chris' family therapist thinks that Marijuana Anonymous will help supplement Chris', and the family's, recovery.

So to sum things up, for families like Mary's, talk-therapy among a group instead of one-on-one makes sense. Therapists sometimes work with groups who already know each other, like family members and couples, and sometimes with groups that share a common goal. Group therapy allows the therapy session to focus on interpersonal interaction and communication strategies more than individual therapy. It can also help to see others who are going through the same problem as you - this is a founding principle of non-therapist led, self-help style therapy groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and its offshoots like Marijuana Anonymous. Group therapy can make a therapy session more like a real-world interaction.