Why can participating in a group be therapeutic?

Why can groups be so therapeutic in mental and emotional health treatments? It is known that in the treatment of certain problems such as addictions or eating disorders, support networks play a fundamental role, but this is also the case even when there is no specific pathology. Groups can help build bonds that work to prevent health problems. In this article, we are going to delve a little deeper into this.

Groupness can have therapeutic effects in itself. Especially if it is a group that is particularly regulated and coordinated. Participating in a group allows many of the personal experiences, which sometimes make us feel isolated, to be in line with those of others, making it possible to build a collective bond, a support network that links the person socially.

Participation in a group makes possible instances of communication and interaction that are sometimes complex to build on a day-to-day basis, much more so now with the confinement for so long during the pandemic. Generating a group is a way of linking with vital aspects and of receiving from others similarities and differences with our own life that help the development of identity and to be able to cope with difficult circumstances that arise.

The group gives us perspective. It helps us to recognize ourselves in others and to separate ourselves. This of observing what unites us and what differentiates us is a very important work of the subjective journey.

Groups can function as a matrix of containment, providing the ground for emotions or issues of the unconscious to emerge. We constitute ourselves through ties at the family level, and this scenario takes shape in the group, as long as the necessary conditions are met. The revival of old conflicts and the appearance of factors in the exchange with others allows us to work on many sometimes hidden aspects of ourselves.

Both in therapeutic groups and in support networks or in creative groups, among others, something of the exchange and encounter occurs that allows us to see ourselves in interaction and attend to the effects, emotions, and behaviors that are put into play. Observing who we like and who irritate us or generate rejection, if the case arises, offers us the opportunity to read what of ourselves is revealed there. 

The group can be a symbol of contention, or it can generate defensive and phobic positions.

Projections and identifications in grouping occur very clearly if we are open to observing them. But beyond all the psychological aspects that intervene, the therapeutic aspect of the group has to do with the assembly of this network or matrix that allows a point of support. A place of reference, welcome, and acceptance. That is why it is very important that the group is regulated or coordinated so that there are codes and norms of mutual respect that are sustained and that make the feeling of contention possible.

Participating in a group, especially today, allows us to build from the collective, unite and link, repair, and better understand individual experiences.

 

Thank You