[sidony]

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

[Perna]

Welcome to PC, Sidony!

I've been in several therapy groups over the years and was in one for 10+ years. It can take time to "bond" with others, how long have you been going to this group?

One thing that might help with your "response" to the other people is to discuss things that are personal to you :-) I find it's always easy in every situation to talk to someone else about their problems but getting my problems and experiences out there to be discussed is another matter. Bring up some of your own issues, your fears about getting close and try to make things "personal" to the members in your group. I think you're thinking of each individual member too much as being part of the overall group and not as "themselves" in that group? See the slight diffence? I think you're "choosing" to see them as coworkers because what "coworker" means to you is a more comfortable position for you.

I was fortunate in my last job to have started to work in a group of 6 women who were very bonded together personally; we had a sister pair, the young daughter of the company owner, a friend of one of the other workers, a woman who was one of the first employees of the company, etc. Several of the women had been there over 10 years and the sisters had had a third sister who had been there before! So I entered this group and was fortunate to work my way into personal relationships with several of the women. We had group crises (one of the sisters developed breast cancer) and I learned a great deal in the seven years I was there both about group processes and me with individuals.

But think of something to say to a specific individual in the group either about yourself/your experience or about how you personally feel about something they say? That's kind of what your therapist meant about talking to the new girl about being new (since you were the previous "new" girl :-) I remember when I started my group I was in for 10 years, one guy (who I ended up dating much later :-) said, "So, you're the new kid on the block" and it sounded so friendly and I wished I'd been able to respond to that comment and say something like, "My, how friendly, you remind me of my brother" or something (he did, he LOOKED like my brother :-) as well as sounded/said things like him.

[sidony]

Hi Perna!

Thanks for your response. I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't been going very long at all. Too soon to even want to discuss (in therapy) these fears of interacting on the "co-worker" level. So I thought I'd discuss it online and withhold judgment (inside the therapy setting) until I've been going long enough that I won't sound like I'm jumping to conclusions! Since even though I'm brand-new to group therapy I see this as a real potential problem. I've even shared some personal stuff about myself, and in so doing I feel like I'm just following the assigned task, playing the game I'm supposed to be playing. Even though what I say about myself is true all its meaning is gone when I'm saying it. Feels just like giving a report on a project at work. The project is myself and I'm giving the report.

No one reminds me of anyone. I just think of the random, faceless co-workers I've known over the years (the ones I only interacted with in a team). I like them -- they're fine. I just don't connect with them.

But I'll keep trying to think of things to say. I definitely don't want to give up too quickly.

Thanks, Sidony

[Perna]

"I've even shared some personal stuff about myself, and in so doing I feel like I'm just following the assigned task, playing the game I'm supposed to be playing."

Ah, the old about game :-) You're supposed to share yourself as you are in the moment. I have brown eyes, so what or my mother died when I was 3 -- I told that to the female barber yesterday and she instantly said how sorry she was and I instantly deflected it; both of us were not in the moment; it didn't cost me anything to talk about what happened 53 years ago now I'm grown and yet I didn't take the opportunity to get "closer" to her by thanking her personally for being sorry for my loss but she didn't stop either to think about the age difference and that I was telling her, a stranger, and listen to the rest of my "story" which was about how my father took me (when I was 3 & 4) to the barber shop with him because I only have brothers and I was a little girl. . . If she had commented on the sweetness or appreciated my being a little girl out with her father after their mother/wife had died, etc. it would have been a "meaningful" moment but both of us rushed by it rather than connect with one another.

[sidony]

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Perna said:
Ah, the old about game :-) You're supposed to share yourself as you are in the moment.

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Good perspective! This is what I'm bad at -- even in individual therapy it's taken me most of a year to figure out how I feel at a particular moment. Most of the time I don't know. I'm mostly just waiting for an interaction to end so I can think about it afterward. Kind of silly. Who I am in the moment is just the observer -- the one collecting all the information so I can ponder it later. Or else I'm apathetic or tuned-out, which is not very helpful either.

Sigh...
Sidony

[Perna]

It's not at all easy or automatic! At first in most groups I'd realize how "normal" my childhood/growing up seemed to me and how "messed up" the others seemed :-) That wasn't a very good attitude either.

Do you have/have you noticed any quirks you have in group? I use to like to sit in a certain seat or beside certain people and not others. Notice that sort of feeling (scary to talk about though). For me there was often a lot of fleeting stuff I had to teach myself to catch; admiration or jealousy that one person could talk more easily than I could, fear that I was going to be "called on" next or called out for not having much to say, asked my opinion, etc. Sometimes I wish I could go back and try again :-) I feel like I was looking in the "wrong" direction when I'd be asked something, I remind/reminded myself of an animal, specifically cats :-) who look at your finger when you point instead of what you're pointing at?

[sidony]

I hate being a newbie! :-) I wanted to post a response to this yesterday, but I'm limited to 5 posts per day for the first few days. Guess I'd better use them wisely. :-)

But I saved the response I'd written, and here it is:

---------------

Actually there was a big discussion about who was sitting where last week. That must be a common group therapy topic. :-) I've sat in the same place each time. I think it's just me being a creature of habit though. Doesn't so much matter who sits next to me. There's an older guy who always sits in the big chair. He was late to the session and noted when he walked in that no one had taken his chair and were we afraid to take it. :-) I thought that was funny. I prefer the couch so his chair was safe from me.

I like the cat analogy! I'm sure that's me too. Always missing the point.

I remember someone saying something that was really direct (they were using a reference from an interaction with their partner). I remember being shocked by how direct they were, and then the therapist asked me if I wanted into the conversation. I said I was just thinking about how surprisingly direct that statement is (something I rarely am). And he said "so you're admiring him?" And then I realized that might be the way I felt. Or at least close to it. I wouldn't have noticed though.

Interesting.

Thanks for your posts! It's good to talk about this stuff. :-)

Sidony