Group Therapy: Why It Works and What to Expect

When people picture therapy, they usually picture one person talking to one clinician in a quiet room. Group therapy looks different: several people, often strangers to each other at first, working through real struggles together with a licensed clinician guiding the process. It isn't a lesser version of individual therapy or a support meeting with a clinical label attached. It's its own evidence-based format, and for a lot of people, it works better. This guide covers why group therapy works, what the research actually shows, why sharing in a room full of people is worth the initial discomfort, and how BAS builds a group setting people can actually trust.

Why Group Therapy Works

Psychiatrist Irvin Yalom spent decades studying what actually makes group therapy effective, and identified a specific set of mechanisms that don't show up the same way in a one-on-one room. A few of the biggest ones:

• Universality: realizing you're not the only one who feels this way is often the single most valued moment in group therapy. Isolation is part of what makes a struggle feel unbearable, and hearing someone else describe your exact experience breaks that isolation immediately
• Instillation of hope: watching someone further along in their own process, visibly doing better than they were a few months ago, does something a clinician's reassurance alone can't
• Altruism: supporting someone else through their struggle turns out to be genuinely therapeutic for the person giving support, not just the person receiving it
• Interpersonal learning: a group is a live, low-stakes place to practice the exact communication and relationship patterns that are hard to change in real life, with real-time feedback from people who aren't afraid to be honest
• Group cohesiveness: the sense of belonging that builds as a group develops trust becomes a support system in its own right, one that keeps working between sessions, not just during them

None of this replaces individual attention from a clinician. It adds something individual therapy structurally can't: other people.

Different Needs, Same Room

Some groups are organized around a shared concern, grief, anxiety, substance use, and the common thread itself is part of the value. But even in more mixed groups, where members are working through different diagnoses, different ages, or completely different life circumstances, something consistent shows up: as different as people are on paper, the underlying human process of struggling, coping, and slowly getting better tends to look remarkably similar. A grieving parent and a stressed-out college student may have nothing in common on the surface, but both are learning to sit with discomfort instead of avoiding it, and both benefit from watching someone else do the same. That's the clinical value of a mixed room: it makes clear that coping is a skill everyone is building, not a personal deficiency unique to you.

Does the Evidence Actually Back This Up?

Yes, and not narrowly. A series of 11 meta-analyses covering 329 studies found group therapy effective for depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, social anxiety, panic disorder, OCD, PTSD, eating disorders, borderline personality disorder, substance use disorders, and chronic pain, with outcomes that, across most of these conditions, showed no meaningful difference from individual therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy in particular performs about equally well in group or individual format. For schizophrenia specifically, group therapy actually outperformed individual therapy at 12- and 24-month follow-up. This isn't a lower-cost substitute for real treatment. It's a genuinely different, well-supported way of delivering it.

Group Therapy Costs Less, Which Matters

With insurance, both formats are usually far cheaper than the self-pay rates above, but the gap tends to hold proportionally. If cost has ever been the reason you put off therapy, this is worth knowing.

Widely Available, Rarely Chosen

Isn't It Uncomfortable to Share in Front of Others?

Honestly, yes, at first, for most people. This is one of the most common and best-documented reasons people hesitate to try group therapy: fear of judgment, worry about how others will react, or simply wanting one-on-one attention instead of splitting time with a room. That hesitation is normal, not a sign that group therapy is wrong for you.

It's also exactly what a good therapist is trained to work with. Before anyone joins an ongoing group, a clinician typically meets with them individually first, to build trust, assess fit, and set expectations. Groups run on clear norms: confidentiality is a ground rule everyone agrees to, no one is forced to share before they're ready, and the pace of participation is something you control. Most people who are hesitant at first find that the discomfort fades within the first few sessions, once it becomes clear the group is a safe, structured space and not an audience.

What Types of Group Therapy Are There?

• Process or interpersonal groups: open-ended groups focused on the here-and-now dynamics between members, often mixing different presenting concerns intentionally
• Psychoeducational groups: structured, skills-focused sessions that teach concrete tools, common for anxiety, stress management, or parenting
• Support groups: organized around a shared experience, grief, a specific diagnosis, or a life transition, with peer support as the central mechanism
• Skills-based groups: structured curricula like DBT skills groups, built around teaching specific emotion-regulation and coping techniques in a repeatable format

BAS's Approach to Group Therapy

Every group at BAS is facilitated by a licensed clinician, with an individual intake first to make sure the group is the right fit before anyone joins. We offer group therapy for both teens and adults, in person at our Doral and Sunset-Kendall offices, always alongside individual and family options for clients who need more than one format at once.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I be forced to share personal details in front of strangers?
No. Participation happens at your own pace. Most groups have members who mostly listen for the first several sessions before opening up, and that's completely normal.

Is what I say in group therapy confidential?
Confidentiality is a ground rule every member agrees to before joining. The same clinical exceptions that apply to individual therapy, like risk of harm to yourself or others, apply in group settings too.

How is this different from a support group?
Group therapy is led by a licensed mental health clinician using structured, evidence-based techniques, not just peer-facilitated discussion. Both have value, but group therapy is a clinical treatment format.

Can I do group therapy alongside individual therapy?
Yes, and many people do. The two formats work well together rather than competing with each other.

Will insurance cover group therapy?
Most commercial insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare plans cover group therapy the same way they cover individual outpatient therapy. See our full guide to getting started with therapy for details on cost and coverage, or ask about our sliding-scale program if you're uninsured or underinsured.

This article was created with the assistance of AI and reviewed for clinical accuracy by a licensed member of the Behavioral Aid Solutions clinical team, with editorial review by a journalist.