Thanks guys...
The way group therapy works: We just start talking about anything. Anything anyone wants to talk about. Our therapist listens for a while and then he'll eventually comment on the interactions, maybe asking how someone felt about an interaction, etc. He talks
way less than in individual therapy. He lets the conversation get underway and then comments on what different members (or the group as a whole) are doing. It's really bizarre.
Pinksoil, you asked how he offered to help me. Here's a specific example from therapy today: I mentioned that last night (in group) I had spoken to another group member to try to clear up some confusion about a previous interaction he and I had had. My therapist asked me how the other member felt about what I said. I said "Well I guess he liked it." And then my therapist went on to ask me why I was unsure and had I not seen the other guy's facial expressions, etc. Next time my therapist wants to intercede more to ask me if I'm aware of what's going on with the other person because I tend to be so self-conscious (social anxiety again) that I don't notice a lot of subtleties in interaction (how I've made another person feel, how they've made me feel, etc.). But naturally I'm scared that he'll ask me to share that kind of stuff if I let him help me. He's mostly not interceded too much with me yet (presumably because he doesn't want to scare me off from the group just yet). Once or twice he's tried to help me and I've pushed him away. I guess I'd better let him though or I'll have to give up on this whole idea.
When I was first considering trying group therapy, I read a lot about it. I found a paragraph that I really like which I really think is a good explanation. So I'm going to quote it here. This was actually talking about flamewars (but is a great description of group therapy):
</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
From http://www.plaidder.com/crackpot.htm#group:
The point of group therapy is to allow people to better understand, and if necessary modify, the ways in which they interact with their peers. The goal of a session is not so much to get people to talk about their issues, as to get them to be aware of the way they interact with the other group members while doing it. In other words, it's really about
how the conversation works -- who talks, who doesn't, who gets upset, who gets angry, who plays alpha dog and who rolls over to show his soft underbelly, and why. So, for example, if A brings up something ****** that happened at work that day, and B says, "That's nothing, listen to this much worse thing that just happened to ME," and C says, "Shut up, B, can't you see A is upset?" and D says, "Why are you always picking on B?" and then A says, "Oh, never mind, it wasn't important," the thing to investigate is not so much what happened to A at work as why B felt the need to upstage her, why C took it upon herself to defend A, why D is so critical of C, and why A retires crushed instead of defending her right to speak. Eventually, in theory, A will learn to be more assertive and less whiny, B will learn not to be such an attention hog, C will learn to fight her own battles and leave others to fight theirs, and D will learn not to leap gleefully into the fray at the first sign of conflict.
</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
That really is what it's about. Being yourself and learning what you do in interactions. It's scary.
Sidony