group therapy - does it help?

Decided to try group therapy - went to see a Dr. today who decided if I was depressed enough to join - lucky for me - he told me I was
Have any of you been in dep. groups? do they help?
VERY nervous about it - starting to think maybe I shouldn't - saying things out loud to others seems so scary...
What do you think?

Hi Ouch,

I personally found group therapy to be very helpful and comforting. Knowing that we were all there for common reasons cemented a sort of bond among everyone there. I actually made a few friends there who actually understood me and didn't judge me (and vice versa).

I was a little apprehensive about speaking at first, but after hearing everyone else talk it became much easier.

Good luck to you, I hope you find it very beneficial!

Sujin

I have to agree with Sujin...I have found group therapy to be extremely beneficial...I highly recommend it.

One thing...do not confuse support groups like NAMI or DBSA with group therapy led by a licensed therapist...they are both good, but they are different, with different goals.

DJ

Yup I have gone through my therapist office depression management group three times.

The first and second time were actually the same time. I was in one but was not comfortable because there were two men and me and one of the men was using the group as a personal pitty party instead of doing the work so I started skipping . Because of the financial help that I recieve I had to move from a two bedroom appartment into a one bedroom one during the time my child was in foster care the first time. So not only was I dealing with why he was in care but also the fact that I was losing the home where all my memories of my child had been. So SKR the therapist I had at that time came over while the movers were putting all our stuff into the U Haul and taking it to our new appartment. After letting the movers in the new place SKR had to go to the depression management group she attended with the agency. She said I had two choices I could go along with her or she would go just long enough to tell the facilitator that she would not be able to be there. She was in the group not only as a professional but for herself too so I didn't want her to lose her time with the group so I went along and I was amazed. It was primarily women and every one of them were there to get things done not use the group as a pitty party of every week the same problem. We had activities to do and everyone participated. I ended up calling the group facilitator of the group I was in the next morning and telling her I would not be back I was switching over to the evening group with the other facilitator.

We had a great time in the group. and the facilitator was using a book that had garfield comics in it and those comics were so fitting to each nights lessons. I finished that group and then after I recieved LL as a therapist with the same agency I heard LL was the new facilitator of the depression management group So I thought why not join back up for another round (the group runs like a loop classes 1 through 15 and without a break jjust restarts with class one again. this way people can join at any time and just keep going until the classes start repeating for them.) At the very least I can get to know LL better because I had just began to see her.

in the depression management group with LL we used the book Mind Over Mood. We all had a great time and for the most part everyone did their part in participating. LL also suplimented with other things like info from the local NAMI office and other informative handouts. we had a couple days where we brought it food and shared jokes and fun stuff too. LL kept the group focused on ways we could help ourselves to recognize the symptoms of depression and when we were heading down by keeping depression inventory logs and so on. I did have one problem in the group and that was at check in we had to tell what our depression level was on a scale of 1-10 but yet the depression inventory scale in the book we were using had a scale of 1 -57. But I came up with a way to convert the 1-57 scale into a 1-10 scale by dividing 57 by ten so for example numbers 1-6 on the 57 scale equiled 1 on the 10 scale. Which had LL stumped for a few weeks because at check in I was always a 5. When I finally let her off the hook and showed her that the two scale conflicted and how I solved it with mathamatical conversion she decided to leave it up to the group if we would keep telling our depression level during check.. of course everyone voted to drop it out of check in.

If its a therapy group not a support group so it will kind of be like school where the therapist will ask a question and either one person will volunteer to answer the question or he will go around the room "round robin" style where everyone has to answer the question as to how it fits with each person.

If its a support group you will only have to talk if you want to.

Most groups have a rule that if the person doesn't want to answer a question or not talk they can say "pass".