Group counselling is a structured process in which people facing similar issues meet regularly, facilitated by a professional.

Group counselling
The power of a group comes from the one thing individual work cannot provide: other people.

What does a group do differently?

In individual counselling a person describes themselves. In a group, the way they relate emerges live, in the room. The relational pattern someone has outside repeats inside the group — this time in a form that can be observed and worked with.

What a group provides

  • Universality: the experience of “it is not only me” — one of the strongest reducers of shame
  • Feedback: learning how others actually experience you
  • Modelling: seeing the strategies of someone coping with a similar difficulty
  • A place to practise: trying out a new way of communicating in a safe setting
  • Being able to help: being useful to someone else feeds self-worth directly

Where is it used?

  • Stress and anxiety management
  • Confidence and self-esteem
  • Communication and relationship skills
  • Recovery after trauma
  • Loss and bereavement groups
  • Emotional awareness and emotion regulation

How it works

Groups may be closed or open-ended. Closed groups begin with a fixed membership and continue with the same people across a set number of sessions, which strengthens the sense of safety.

  • Group size: generally six to ten people
  • Sessions: weekly, ninety to a hundred and twenty minutes
  • Pre-group meeting: every participant has an individual meeting before the group starts
  • Group agreement: confidentiality, attendance and rules about contact outside the group are agreed together in the first session
Confidentiality runs both ways: the facilitator’s obligation is professional; the participants’ rests on the group agreement. That is why it is discussed openly in the first session and revisited throughout.

Who is it not suitable for?

Where there is an acute crisis, significant suicide risk, unstabilised substance use, or social anxiety severe enough to make the group setting unmanageable, individual work is recommended first. That assessment is made at the pre-group meeting.

Before joining a group

  1. A pre-group meetingWhether the group is right for you is assessed together in an individual meeting.
  2. A commitment to attendRegular attendance protects the safety of the group; absence affects not only you but everyone.
  3. You do not have to talkIn the early sessions, listening is participation too. You move at your own pace.
  4. It can run alongside individual workA group is usually a complement to individual counselling rather than an alternative to it.

Group Counselling

Structured group processes that draw on the healing power of peer support.

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References

  1. Yalom, I. D., & Leszcz, M. (2020). The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy (6th ed.). Basic Books.
  2. American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Publishing.