It's not for everyone—people need to be able to engage interpersonally and be open to feedback and the unexpected.

Group Psychotherapy is an affordable, accessible way to access therapeutic support from qualified mental health professionals. To learn more, DM me to learn more about group sessions.

Group Psychotherapy is an affordable, accessible way to access therapeutic support from qualified mental health professionals. To learn more, DM us for the link to learn more and register for group sessions.

-The "Emotional Lab": Group provides a practice arena for skills you're learning in individual therapy. You can test out new ways of being in a safe container with immediate feedback.

-Real-Time Feedback: Group members trust and take in feedback from peers differently than from therapists. When someone in a group says, "You do this thing where you apologize after everything you say," it lands differently than when a therapist says it.

-Multiple Transferences: In individual therapy, you might successfully avoid certain types of people or dynamics. In a group, they show up—the person who reminds you of your critical mother, the one who triggers your people-pleasing, the one whose confidence you envy.

Group therapy does things individual therapy simply cannot:

But I get the resistance. Most people think, "It can't be as good as individual therapy, right?"

Wrong.

And when it works, the results seem to hold, too.

The solutions clients find for themselves are often innovative and surprising--to both of us.

I wrote a bit about it here in case your're curious about it, or your therapist has offered it, and you aren't so sure...

Subscribe to my Substack to read more about relationships and how they're impacted by the social container and culture we're sitting in: shifthappenscollective.substack.com

Sometimes, the most insidious thing that happens is that your truth is never acknowledged. When we suppress our own thoughts and feelings, we know it takes a toll on our physical and mental health.

It’s not always physical abuse. Often, it’s what we call coercive control—a slow erosion of autonomy through monitoring, isolation, and subtle threats. You start second-guessing yourself. Diminishing your needs. Shrinking to keep the peace.

And when they name it, they’re often met with gaslighting, excuses, deflection, or silence. They are asked to hold and take more seriously the experiences of everyone but themselves.

And yet, so many of the relationships I hear about don’t meet that basic bar. Women carry the majority of unpaid labor, from child-rearing and housework to emotional support and mental load.

It's a space where everyone can flourish—not just survive. There’s no coercion or abuse. No one benefits at the other’s expense. Everyone’s labor—emotional, cognitive, physical—is recognized and respected.

I talk about this experience on the Therapist Uncensored podcast and continue to write and reflect on it. For upcoming writing and thinking about improv's role in social justice and anti-oppressive ways of being, subscribe to my Substack: shifthappenscollective.substack.com

And somehow, through that strange mix of laughter and grief, we found a way to talk about oppression, power, and identity without collapsing into shame or rage.

We didn’t fix the world. But we stayed present. We stayed kind. And we stayed connected.

And then we played.

We did movement-based games. We clapped when someone made a mistake. We laughed. We shared painful truths. We said “yes, and” instead of “yes, but.” We practiced being in our bodies, together.

But I grounded myself in what I know improv can do. I opened the session with a personal “yes, and” statement—naming the harm I’ve caused and the harm I’ve experienced due to varying places of privilege and marginalization. I situated myself in complexity. I asked the group to do the same.