Support group and psychotherapy
Support groups are one form psychological helpwhich, unlike psychotherapy, is not always conducted by a psychologist or psychotherapist. Support groups are made up of people trying to deal with the same or a similar problem, for example with obesity or compulsive overeating myself. Very often, the person conducting the meeting also faces this difficulty. Sometimes support groups seek professional help by inviting specialists from various fields – psychology, dietetics or medicine to their meetings. Support group meetings are often held once a week, sometimes once a month.
Form: open or closed?
This type of assistance can be provided in open form – when it is possible to add new participants during the group’s duration, or closed – when this community is closed and does not accept new participants for the duration of its work (e.g. a year). Both forms have advantages but also disadvantages. Closed groups give sense of securitywhich increases with the passing of meetings, the addition of a new person may put him in danger again and make it difficult to talk about often intimate problems. In turn, the advantage of open groups is expanding knowledge and methods of coping with the problem with the addition of new people – everyone is an individual unit coping with the problem in a different way.
The power is in the group
In each group, be it a therapeutic group or a support group, certain phenomena occur that favor coping with one’s problems. These factors are:
- instilling hope – one of the participants or the leader may have evidence that, e.g. losing weight is possible. It is also important for participants to observe the progress of others – seeing that people with the flu are losing weight – we hope that we will do it.
- versatility – in a group, people with e.g. compulsive overeating have the opportunity to notice that not only they struggle with this problem. Such an experience brings relief and reduces the feeling of alienation from society caused by the problem
- giving information – participants get new information and ways of dealing with the problem not only from the teacher or expert, but also from each other. Yes knowledge exchange between participants she is very valuable to them.
- altruizm – the group triggers the desire helping another personwhich often has a positive function also for the helping person, e.g. it mobilizes to continue following the advice that the person passed on to others.
- development of social skills – often due to problems, e.g. overweight, there is a withdrawal of relationships in social life. The group gives the opportunity to see what is really causing a person not to establish a relationship, which can be very helpful.
- catharsis – there is a possibility of emotional reaction in the group, you can tell about your feelings related to the problem, which is often difficult to express towards relatives.
Additionally, the conducted research indicates that declaring the willingness to achieve the goal in the group favors itfaster achievement. So let’s take advantage of the group through which you can achieve your goal.