Hi, I'm new here but feeling too impatient to start in the introductions section. :-)

I'm hoping someone will give me their thoughts on this:

I very recently started group therapy. My reason for seeking therapy is that I find it very difficult to be close to people. I also suffer from some social anxiety. I find individual therapy to be enormously helpful, so I thought I would give group therapy a try also (at my therapist's suggestion).

I'm finding right away that group therapy is a good way to work on social anxiety (nothing like being forced to speak to cause it to become easier).

However, the closeness part eludes me (and that's the part I really cared about). I know that the idea is that you relate to people in your group like the other people you've known in life (friends, family, etc.) and that this provides a chance to interact differently. Unfortunately, what I'm noticing is that -- instead of interacting with the group the way I have with family and friends -- I interact with them the way I do with my co-workers at work. That is to say: They're all nice, interesting people, and I feel very willing to cooperate with them and try to work on a task and figure out conflicts, etc. But ultimately I expect to have no real connection with any of them. I have co-workers that I like and respect, but when they're gone I don't even remember them. And now I feel like group therapy is me going to work, working with co-wokers on the assigned task of trying to be more intimate (granted, that's a really different task), and then going home from work. The only times I bond with a co-worker are when we start interacting one-on-one -- and that's something that's not allowed in group therapy (we're not supposed to socialize at all outside the group). So it seems unlikely I can bond with any of them. So I wonder if it will be pointless. How can I work on closeness when I have no options to achieve it? I guess maybe I'm one of the ones who can only benefit from individual therapy.

My therapist asked me if I was trying to bond with the other new girl in the group, and I didn't even know what he meant. How would you bond other than one-on-one? To me, intimacy requires privacy.

Am I missing something? Anyone have any experiences with group therapy?

Thanks, Sidony