Ten Week On Ramp to Relational Group Therapy
Individual therapy is a safe haven where your helpful hired hand is there to listen to you, to be your personal guide, to create a specially designed space for you to learn and grow. Not exactly like life, huh? Group, if you are willing to take the risk, can support you in real time to build the solid connection to yourself that navigating relationships and experiencing real satisfaction in your life endeavors requires.
This 10 week experiential access point to the gifts (and yes, challenges…) of group therapy will provide you with:
~ Helpful frameworks and psychoeducation to support clarifying how group works.
~ Structured practice in key relationship building skills.
~ Open periods of interpersonal process to provide you space to feel your way to new ways of being.
You’ll complete a weekly log for expressing the part of your experience that feel too risky to say during group. As the process develops, we’ll work together to explore the beliefs, fears, parts of your history or experience in this culture make knowing and speaking what’s true for you, difficult. Interpersonal process works in ways that can be hard to put to workds
Interpersonal process works in ways that can be hard to put into words…. but here’s how some past members express it…
I have a lot more patience for people now than I used to and… I'm also more patient with myself. I've gotten to practice being around other group members while they struggled and made mistakes, and because I've practiced being unskilled in front of other group members too, making mistakes and learning from them and just sort of being in the discomfort of that…. I'm not as afraid of my feelings as I used to be.
I appreciate how Pearl is always visibly learning new things and insights and integrating them into her practice. I love Pearl's humanness. I always feel seen and heard.
I'm much more able to regulate my emotions in many more circumstances. I have a lot more insight into why I might have gotten disregulated in the first place. I have a lot more trust that when ruptures happen, repair can happen…. I'm (still, always) learning to be gentle with myself, a skill that Pearl is always modeling, encouraging and reminding me is possible….
Pearl does a good job of giving me enough space to explore while being a supportive figure. There are times where I wish she would tell me what to do all the time, but that wouldn't be therapy! That would be someone steamrolling over my ability to get myself there.
I really appreciate the opportunity to work with Pearl in a group setting. She is insightful and intuitively senses what’s going on beneath the surface, when to invite me in, when to push me a little. The group is really helping me to unlearn limiting beliefs about how I can participate in relationships and to feel more comfortable and authentic in interpersonal connection. Pearl and the group have been a big part of my healing over the last year.
Coming to understand and trust the inner knowing that I didn't know was there has been really rewarding and helpful. It has helped me navigate conflict in my relationships, and to come to an undestanding of self-acceptance. I think I'm getting to the point where I don't need to chase perfection to be comfortable with myself. This is actually a significant and dramatic shift to my self perception.
It’s a really neat experience to feel like (Pearl) as a group leader, has “got,” us,. I’m finding myself feeling safer in just SAYING the thing I’m thinking instead of putting it through lots of filters.
I’m figuring out more of where I end and others begin. As in, I’m feeling more confident in not trying to be the “fixer,” of other people’s stuff and I’m practicing showing up more
Think about it like a journal that doesn't let you off the hook from experiencing your feelings. Be honest, but don't pressure yourself to perform like you think you need to. The best thing to do is to not know what to do.
Just 5 weeks in, the connections I've been able to make with members of the group as well as the observations and insights I've picked up from myself have been eye opening and empowering.
I have experienced more awareness about my feelings/experiences in relationship- maybe than ever before. I really feel myself growing in my clarity. I like the open - ended/ expansive nature of the educational pieces.
You're there to share and listen in turn. There's no prescribed way to share. It will feel both uncomfortable and affirming and in ways you won't anticipate.
Nurturing, but also prodding. Pearl has a really great eye for noticing people that have something to say but are not talking, and she's good at asking provocative questions.
Group isn't about finding a solution to a specific problem, but much more about perspective. However, it's incredible how much perspective can help you find the solutions. The biggest piece of advice is to trust that you'll be heard, and face the discomfort head on.
Group is a place where members' emotional lives are shared. It opens your eyes and your heart. And you may be truly seen.