Group Psychotherapy Sessions with Michaela

Group psychotherapy

Michaela completed a 5-year training course for Psychodynamic Group-psychotherapy in the Czech Republic and holds a Membership with the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists.

Groups can often be intimidating at first, however, research has shown that people who have attended group treatments for a while find group therapy beneficial. This is mainly because it offers connection, which helps with feeling alone and isolated. A lot of the time it also helps with normalising one’s experience, and, it allows people to improve their relationships with others.

Group therapy sessions should be led by a mental health professional with specific group psychotherapy training.  Initial individual session(s) with the group psychotherapist will help you to identify whether group therapy is the right form of treatment for you (at this point). Many people often combine group and individual treatment, as these forms of therapy support each other well.

Groups should provide a safe space for their participants and therefore confidentiality plays an important part in the process. It is one of the non-negotiable rules of groups, that content shared in the group space remains between its participants. This excludes cases when duty of care has to come first. 

There are many different forms of group psychotherapy - the main two are Open groups and Closed groups. Open groups are groups where new members can join at any time and members who have completed their treatment can finish at any given point as well. This means that participants of the group change over time. Closed groups on the other hand have a specific number of sessions and all members begin the treatment at the same time. Both forms have their pros and cons and it depends on your individual needs. 

Standard session length is 90 minutes.