chronic traumatic stress, and helping patients overcome their traumatic experience.
Group therapy’s effectiveness in regards to depression is questionable though, as evidence of specific help appears to be lacking. Depression exists in so many forms though that it is easier to focus on one aspect of depression and look at the help group therapy provides to that. A study on the effects of group therapy for women suffering from postnatal depression was conducted in 1995 and later expanded on in 2012. It stated that while the beginnings of the therapy were tough for the women to get through, later on the sense of “...support and understanding they experienced together with the relief of no longer feeling alone, gave them hope for the future.”
I know the feeling of hopelessness. That feeling that creeps up on you in moments of doubt. I’ve struggled with it just this year and I can honestly say that sometimes just talking about it helps me. At times just sitting down and talking to people who are going through the same thing serves to remind me that not only am I not alone in feeling this way, but that the feeling will go away eventually.
The feelings that group therapy, any type and for any reason, try to evoke in people is the renewed sense of self-confidence, self-worth, and self-image. The ultimate goal of group therapy, and any therapy really, is to help patients overcome their problems with themselves and have a better outlook on their lives. The only thing group therapy does differently is that it allows people to make social bonds with strangers so that they can be shown that there is hope for them down the road of recovery. It’s supposed to provide a support system for people to fall back on when they are in need so that they will eventually feel emotionally stable on their own. That emotional stability is important to have because while they can still take care of their basic human needs, people need both a feeling of safety and security. People require that feeling as well as the knowledge of strong connections with others so as to feel loved and like they belong. To feel those things means they are on a path towards feeling good about themselves and being able to carry out more relationships than just friendship. And that’s the goal of the therapy itself isn’t it, to make people feel confident enough in themselves that they can positively interact with others?
It’s the basis of human connection that people can feel for and learn from each other through sharing things. In the case of AA, when people share things it’s a way for them to get something off their chest as well as provide a new line of thinking to the people around them. It empowers them to stay sober because here, in front of them, are a group of people doing the same thing they are; they aren’t alone in what they are going through, and things might get easier down the road because they have people to turn to when they get low.