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Therapy can be a wonderful resource for learning more about who you are and what you want or need in your life. But not everyone immediately feels comfortable looking inward. But with group therapy, you can learn more about yourself in a low-stakes group environment. Attending group therapy sessions can help you feel more comfortable with who you are by experiencing your self-discovery alongside your peers.
How Group Therapy Helps With Self-Realization
If you have trouble looking at your own actions or emotions without external influence, it may seem counterintuitive to go to group therapy. But the experience of a group session is so different from everyday life. Whereas many people in your life may push their own opinions on you to influence your thought patterns, group participants instead offer advice and suggestions, enabling you to draw your own natural conclusions.
Validation
One of the key benefits of group therapy sessions is the overwhelming support and validation you receive. It’s natural for someone who doesn’t know themselves well to second-guess their own emotions or responses. But most of the time, your gut instinct is right. Many individuals find that group therapy offers a valuable source of validation, while they’re trying to figure themselves out. Group sessions are designed to support you and who you are, and being told your emotions are true and necessary by multiple people can often give you the confidence you need to trust yourself outside of therapy.
Community
Human beings are social creatures, and we naturally seek a community to connect with and feel a sense of belonging. Most group therapy sessions are created based on a shared experience. This could be a life experience, such as losing a loved one, or it could be more general, such as a certain age group. Feeling like we’re a part of a community can do wonders for boosting our own self-understanding and confidence. Being supported by others and helping to support them in return can build life-long relationships that develop far beyond therapy sessions. By building these strong connections, individuals can maintain their own support group as they continue to navigate life and stay true to themselves.
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Shared Experiences
Having a shared experience with someone else helps build community and relationships, but it can also help you learn more about your own life. When we spend most of our time in a specific situation, we can begin to think about it as normal. Many people who suffer from trauma, especially emotional abuse, don’t realize that something’s wrong or can’t figure out the root cause. Group therapy can help you see how certain experiences in your life aren’t meant to be the norm. By listening to what others have to say and what their experiences are, many individuals start to recognize unhealthy patterns in their own lives or relationships. And understanding these problems is the first step toward building a better, healthier future for yourself.
Learning Through Listening
For many individuals, the idea of self-discovery can be greatly discomforting and unsettling. This can be a major roadblock in your therapy journey and often dissuades people from seeking help. When you go to a group therapy session, you have the opportunity to just sit back and listen, offering feedback if you feel you can. But even if you aren’t directly involved in the conversation, simply absorbing another person’s story can help you discover your own.
When we listen to the experiences of another person, we tend to naturally think about our own similar experiences. So, even if you aren’t talking about your own life, the group may be talking about something relatable to you which you can then apply to your own journey.
Expert Advice
While the main focus of a group therapy session is the community support between members, each session is led by a trained and experienced counselor. Getting the validation and support of others is useful, but sometimes an expert is needed to work through a particular problem. As you go to more sessions and begin feeling more comfortable with therapy and yourself, you can even look into individual sessions to help focus and improve your journey.
Discover Yourself Today
Knowing who you are and feeling comfortable with yourself is a skill that many people struggle with. But with group therapy, it can be a little easier to know and trust who you are. At Connected Roots, we offer group therapy sessions for adults and young adults. If you want to connect with yourself while also building a community with others, give us a call at 720-593-1062 to learn more about our group sessions. We’ll work with you and your insurance provider to help make sure you have the support you need.
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