What They Don't Tell You About Group Therapy

In our most vulnerable moments, we seek community. We desire the listening ears of others, their comforting eyes and soft hands welcoming our embrace. Until we don’t. Until we’re faced with two words that send shivers down the spine of a brooding teenager: group therapy.

It wasn’t like I thought it would be. I imagined a cinderblock room with fold-out chairs and unfamiliar faces. Instead, I was face to face with a Zoom screen, my mother seated beside me in what I can best describe as a night class. Every Tuesday night for 18 months, we sat together and worked through the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy handbook page by page. The manifesto was integral to the practice, focused on skill-based problem solving and harnessing mindful energy. The group work was mandatory if you planned on pursuing DBT treatment. I was, so I did, sitting in my Dad’s office alongside six families and two therapists.

The 14 faces on the screen welcomed my mother and I with uncannily positive energy. Going through the “protocol” for new families, they introduced themselves and discussed the meeting agenda. The group worked in a cycle, with families coming in and out when their time was up, replaced with others shortly after. We began each group with some sort of “mindfulness activity,” which was simply fancy therapy-talk for a game. We had weekly “homework” that we were expected to complete, broken up into four modules: mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotion regulation. Over the next 18 months, we would explore each module twice. Overall, a surprising amount of work for something that is supposed to help you relax.

There were things we were allowed to share, and things we were not. Yes: major life events, simple details, general background information on stories we share. No: explicit allusions to triggering topics, your location, anything negative about the family member attending the group with you. Pretty easy rules, in theory: say what you want without anything too informative, and don’t call your mom a bitch, no matter how much you want to.

Sharing our homework one by one each week, outlining how we used each new “skill” in our own lives, was by far the most group therapy-y part of the process. It made me wonder what each person was holding back, foaming at the mouth to reveal. What were they really struggling with? I knew that I was there for a reason. What was theirs? Each week, I got a sense little by little. Some people were working through anxiety, their homework describing pushing themselves past their fears. Others were focused on anger; harnessing their newly learned skills of relaxation. Over time, these issues became clearer, but at the same time, less important.

We were no longer fucked up strangers, we were all just people. There was one kid who loved World of Warcraft, comparing events he experienced in the real world to his video games. His bedroom, reflected through the screen, was covered with lego sets, fake swords, and video game posters. I found myself thinking of him when I saw anything related to video games, putting it in my back pocket to tell my friend. Another girl went to an all-girls Catholic school, and often recounted the things she discussed in her classes and how they differed from her personal views. I thought of her when I saw students from the local Catholic schools running around during my lunch break, their school canceled for some holiday. I wondered what she was doing with her day off.

There was one girl who I really got to know. We joined the group the same day, and traveled the months completely in sync. As families came and went, she stayed, and we became the ones greeting anxious teens and their awkward parents with pure joy. I listened deeply to her stories every week, her troubles in soccer and her fears of starting high school. I saw pictures of her 8th grade dance, her graduation, and her first high school class photo. “Happy nine months,” she wished my mother and I, smiling just as I was, a completely different look on our faces than was there nine months before. It was as if my sister was speaking to me. It made me realize there was a hidden aspect to group therapy that they don’t tell you about when you sign up: you will create the deepest connections of your entire life, but once those 18 months are up, you never, ever, see each other again.

You have no information about where anyone lives, their exact age, their last names. You can try your hardest to find them based on inklings, but it’s not worth it. The people you meet become your family, but just as soon as you gain them they are gone. Healed. Moved on to bigger and better things that you can’t help but root for.

Still, you think of them when you see a tweet about World of Warcraft, when you hear people tell stories about Catholic school, or recount their experiences on the soccer team. The pride you feel for their growth is sliced by your desire to spend one more session together. You kick yourself for begrudgingly attending, wishing you soaked up the time wisely, thought harder, and did more. You log off a meeting one last time, a simple action that should mean nothing, but instead cuts you in half as you bury a family you have fostered. One who sat by as you mumbled through a session with your mouth inflated, having just got your wisdom teeth removed. One who saw your senior prom through a plethora of photos you lovingly pushed up against the screen. Ones who sat by as you experienced your most important moments—triumphant, heartbreaking, uplifting, downright devastating—all without judgment or questions. One who allowed you to simply be. What they don’t tell you about group therapy is that you’ll desperately want to go back.

Lucy LatorreMay 1, 2024