Positive Outcomes of Group Therapy: Corrective Recapitulation

The roles we play in our family are familiar and indelible. You know what role you assumed; your birth order may well have played a part in the familial roles you adopted. Roles serve to stabilize or defend against flaws in the family. Returning home for the holidays, adult kids slip back into old roles, […]

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Tender Touch

Tender touching is one way that we demonstrate affection towards another person. When you tenderly smooth back your partner’s hair, squeeze his shoulder as you join him on the sofa, massage her feet at the end of a workday, and hold hands walking down the street you are offering security, comfort, connection and loving awareness […]

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Positive Outcomes of Group Therapy: Altruism

Fundamental to the human condition is the desire to help others when they are in trouble. People struggling with interpersonal relations, overwhelming life events, ongoing negative circumstances or self-concept tend to focus on their own difficulties and hesitate to reach out to help those in need. Group therapy offers the members opportunities to provide assistance […]

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Positive Outcomes of Group Therapy: Universality

Clients may enter group therapy with the preconceived idea that they are alone with their problems and that others do not share similar difficulties. While this is true to some extent, the disconfirmation of their uniqueness may be a powerful sense of relief. That is, clients learn that they are universally similar to one another. […]

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Positive Outcomes of Group Therapy: Imparting Information

The inevitable exchange of information in a group setting helps members get from one day to the next. Twelve Step groups focus on the “One Day At A Time” approach to facing personal hurdles. Group members share behaviors that make it possible to stay in the present. Psychoeducational groups offer members the opportunity to reflect […]

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Positive Outcomes of Group Therapy: Instillation of Hope

Recently, I came across a piece by Kovie Biakolo entitled Why Hope Matters on one of my favorite inspirational sites, Thought Catalog. Kovie says, “…that is where hope comes in – believing that though I don’t know the answers, that they do exist and that whatever happens, though I don’t know the reasons, happens for […]

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Three New Women’s Groups Beginning This Fall

The Imago Center’s Hayley Hoffman will be leading three new Women’s Groups beginning this fall. Women in The Second Chapter of Life [su_row] [su_column size=”1/4″] [/su_column] [su_column size=”3/4″] Women who identify as any or all of the following may be interested in a psychodynamic group therapy experience: 20-something to 40-something, curious about how you got […]

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Group Therapy: Is It the Next Right Thing for Me?

My perception of group therapy is in part informed by two books: Irvin Yalom’s novel The Schopenhauer Cure and Norah Ephron’s Heartburn. Formal training is an essential foundation, and so is experience, but sometimes there is nothing as instructive as well-informed fiction. Yalom the consummate group therapist, and Ephron is a compelling storyteller. Needless to […]

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Radical Self-Care for the Holidays!

Heading into the holidays is like relationship boot camp. Your family of origin (FOO) brings out the best and the worst in you and your loved ones. The invitation to return to your FOO role as…pleaser, golden boy, scapegoat, prankster, the favorite, the youngest, the hero, the clown, or the lost child is irresistible. Years […]

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