Group Therapy vs Individual Therapy: Which is Better?
Do you want to gain detailed knowledge on the topic of group therapy vs individual therapy? We are here!
Whenever you seek treatment options for any mental health issue, you’re provided with two options: individual therapy and group therapy. Group therapy and individual therapy differ from one another, especially in the number of people participating in the session. In group therapy, peers with similar experiences have joint therapy, where one or more healthcare providers treat multiple patients at the same time in the same setting. In contrast, individual therapy involves an impartial psychologist and patient having open communication with each other in a one-on-one setting.
In our hands-on comparison, we’ll help you uncover further differences between group therapy and individual therapy so you can decide which one is right for you.
Let’s get into it!
What is Group Therapy?
Group therapy is a form of psychotherapy where one or more psychologists lead a group of 10 to 15 patients face-to-face. In this therapy, the chairs are arranged in a circle, and every member of the group is encouraged to interact with one another. In group therapy, all patients have the same or similar issues, which makes sense for all of them to be in a group. The activities conducted in group therapy can vary depending on your therapist’s style and group objective.
Types of Group Therapy
There are different types of group therapies available out there. Depending on your mental health condition and requirements, your healthcare provider will suggest the best group therapy for your betterment.
1. Cognitive Behavioral Groups
In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), your therapist will help you identify your behavior and emotions caused by negative thoughts. You’ll be provided with mutual reinforcement from the whole group instead of reinforcement from just your therapist. It is effective for patients who are facing problems like eating disorders, drug addiction, depression, and anxiety.
2. Interpersonal Process Groups
In this therapy, each patient gets feedback, support, and perspectives from each other. There are 5 to 10 patients who dive deep into each other’s problems and learn how they relate to one another. It’s a suitable option for you if you’re dealing with depression, anxiety, and bulimia nervosa (eating disorder).
3. Psychoeducational Groups
This group therapy primarily focuses on educating patients about disorders and coping methods. The therapist will educate you about the topic and help you develop healthy coping mechanisms. They might incorporate audio/visual techniques to teach you. It is recommended for people who have mood disorders and phobias.
4. Psychotherapy Groups
Psychotherapy groups are more focused on dealing with an individual’s unconscious and conscious problems. In this therapy, your therapist focuses on resolving long-term issues and disorders. Everyone in this group is encouraged to build relationships through fluent communication. This therapy is suitable for individuals dealing with eating disorders, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
5. Skill Development Groups
The skill development group follows an evidence-based approach. You’re taught to practice new skills to manage your harmful behavior. Your therapist will help you manage your thought process through different problem-solving techniques and coping skills. Skill development groups are ideal for individuals with mental health disorders like substance use disorder, PTSD, depression, and anxiety.
6. Support Groups/Self-Help Groups
In this group therapy, people dealing with similar mental health issues are brought together to build support. It deals with different struggles, including substance addictions, grief or loss, trauma, and other mental health concerns. These groups are generally started independently by therapized individuals as their initiative, and they are mostly donation-based or free.
7. Counseling Groups
Counseling groups is a psychotherapy that involves 4 to 12 participants with one or two supervising therapists. All the members of this group meet for one or two hours. In the group discussion, everyone does a collaborative discussion about the topic that bothers them. After hearing out the issue, they provide each other with support and feedback. This therapy is designed for people who are dealing with major life-changing events like retirement or divorce.
8. Dynamic Group Therapy
This therapy is designed for individuals who want to overcome addictive behaviors. In this type of group therapy, everyone puts in effort to discover each other’s commonalities, which allows them to heal. It is joined mostly by adults who are struggling with trauma-induced eating disorders or those who’ve just met their original family after years.
9. Relapse Prevention Groups
Relapse prevention groups are designed for patients who need help staying sober after rehab. This kind of group therapy encourages everyone to share their fears, relieve stress, and develop different coping mechanisms. All the patients try their best not to fall back into their old habits or get involved in high-risk situations.
How Does Group Therapy Work?
Group therapy helps the patients understand that they’re not alone. There are 10 to 15 patients who interact with each other under the supervision of at least one or more therapists. It brings people with similar experiences together to share information and gain advice from different perspectives. Group members provide support for each other and help each other improve. Group therapy is based on mutual support, trust, and confidentiality and can be both homogeneous and heterogeneous. It works on the ground rule that everyone should actively listen to each other in order to interact.
Therapists play a great role in maintaining a healthy and active environment in group therapies. Through this therapy, you’ll get to learn more about yourself, including some ways to improve mutual relationships. In general, a session lasts for 1 or 2 hours, during which everyone expresses themselves freely. After a few sessions of group therapy, you will know about your strengths and weaknesses by observing yourself and the people around you.
What Does Group Therapy Help With?
Group therapy is used to treat a variety of conditions, including the following:
- Emotional trauma
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Life transitions
- Eating disorders
- Obesity
- Borderline personality disorder
- Schizophrenia
Pros and Cons of Group Therapy
Group therapy can be great for some people, but for others, it might not be effective. To help you understand things better, below are the pros and cons of group therapy.
Pros of group therapy:
- Improves self-esteem: Group therapy includes both learning and helping. You’ll participate in group activities while overcoming difficulties, which will help you build good self-esteem.
- Cost-effective option: Group therapy is more economical as compared to individual therapy, which means you can get effective therapy at a reasonable price.
- Time and place: In group therapy, sessions are held at the convenience of all the patients’ time availability. The meeting time is managed and modified as per the requirements.
Cons of group therapy:
- Less personal attention: In group therapy, the attention is divided equally among all the members. So, you might not get dedicated support from a therapist like you would get in individual therapy.
- Confidentiality concerns: Even if everyone tries to make the conversation confidential, it’s not fully guaranteed because you don’t know everyone personally. Additionally, there is no legal obligation for confidentiality in group therapy.
What is Individual Therapy?
Individual therapy is psychotherapy between a person and a therapist. It is also known as talk therapy or counseling. The prime motive of this therapy is to change and improve the mental health condition of the patient through a mutual process. In this therapy, your therapist will initially recommend the total number of sessions you will have to attend based on your unique needs and challenges. After noting your progress, your therapist may decide to incorporate changes into your treatment plan.
Through individual therapy, your therapist will help you progress enough to reach the stage where you’ll have the ability to handle tough situations and make healthy decisions.
Types of Individual Therapy
You can choose what kind of individual therapy you should go for based on your requirements. Below is a list of individual therapy types so that you can discover the one that best suits your condition.
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a talk-based therapy that helps you solve your problems by changing your thinking and behavior processes. CBT is used to treat patients with anxiety, depression, relationship problems, eating disorders, and other issues.
2. Psychodynamic therapy
Psychodynamic therapy is a mental illness treatment for patients who are dealing with long-term traumas and other mental problems. In this therapy, the therapist talks to you about any random topic to figure out your thought process. You’ll gain detailed insight into your current self by recognizing your thoughts and beliefs. This therapy is a great way to determine a patient’s unconscious, subconscious, preconscious, and conscious behaviors.
3. Behavioral Therapy
Behavioral therapy focuses on serious mental health disorders, where a therapist learns your behavior to change it in a positive direction. This therapy arranges different sessions to change your unhealthy or self-destructive behaviors. This type of therapy is applicable to treating panic disorder, excessive anger, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harming behavior.
4. Humanistic Therapy
Humanistic therapy, also known as humanism, is where a therapist focuses on their clients’ nature. In this type of therapy, a therapist analyzes the patient’s scope of positive traits and behaviors. It focuses on teaching the patients about overcoming criticism and developing self-criticism. Humanistic therapy helps with anxiety, depression, psychosis, personality disorder, trauma, substance abuse, and relationship problems.
5. Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
This therapy focuses on improving your interpersonal abilities, like social skills, connection, and social cognition. You’ll get structured therapy for 10 to 16 weeks, depending on your condition. At the end of the sessions, you’ll be able to deal with conflict, grief, and loss with more stability. Interpersonal psychotherapy is used to treat chronic fatigue, bulimia nervosa, anxiety, and bipolar disorders.
6. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is talking therapy that’s designed for patients who feel every emotion intensely. This therapy focuses on providing an individual with distress tolerance, regulation of emotions, and mindfulness. DBT is ideal for treating borderline personality disorder (BPD), self-injurious behavior, and extreme emotional suffering.
7. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
This therapy follows an action-oriented approach where you’re taught to deal with inner emotions and accept your deeper feelings. It treats different physical and mental conditions like depression, chronic pain, eating disorders, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
How Individual Therapy Works?
Individual therapy focuses on the growth of an individual, where a therapist and the person have one-on-one conversations. Every conversation between the therapist and client is confidential. In some cases, your problems might not disappear easily, so your therapist will discuss your past emotional, physical, and mental health. This way, you can deal with the problems in an appropriate way.
Your therapist may recommend six sessions at least. However, if you’re having a tough time, the duration of treatment can even extend up to 12 to 20 sessions, depending on your needs and progress. At the end of the sessions, you’ll have the ability to overcome your obstacles and improve your self-esteem.
What Does Individual Therapy Help With?
Individual therapy helps you with a number of conditions, like:
- Stress
- Depression
- PTSD
- Addiction
- Grief
- Eating disorders
- Bipolar disorder
- Relationship challenges
- Family dysfunction
- Transitions and goals
- Resolving conflict
- Sexuality
- Phobias
- Loss of enjoyment
- Better coping skills
- Anger management
Pros and Cons of Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is suitable for anyone who might be looking to resolve their mental issues and overcome stress in a confidential setting. However, you should know the ups and downs of individual therapy to decide whether it’s a suitable option for you or not.
Here are some of the pros and cons of individual therapy:
Pros of individual therapy:
- Confidentiality: One of the best things about individual counseling is its confidentiality. Your shared information with the therapist won’t be revealed to any third person ever. A therapist is legally bound to keep your information secret.
- Extra care and attention: Unlike group therapies, all the attention of a therapist is directed to you. This way, your therapist will be able to understand things better and help you cope with your issues.
- Perform exercises: In individual therapy, your therapist will guide you through different exercises. The workouts include visualization, agility training, aerobics, breathing exercises, and movement pattern training to overcome your difficult circumstances.
Cons of individual therapy:
- Expensive: Private conversations cost more. So, before you decide to get individual therapy, it’s better to check the payment plans.
- Lack of sense of belonging: Individual therapy may lack a sense of belonging because the setting may seem too professional. In contrast, through group therapy, people can share their emotions with 10-15 other people, fostering a sense of belonging.
Group Therapy Vs Individual Therapy: Which One to Choose?
Both group therapy and individual therapy have the pros and cons and offer valuable benefits. The choice entirely depends on your individual needs, preferences, and therapeutic goals.
If you’re more comfortable sharing and expressing yourself in a private space, individual therapy is a suitable option for you. However, group therapy can be a good choice if you want a sense of belonging and are open to feedback from strangers.
Before choosing any of them, take a deep look at various factors, including your comfort level, flexibility, pricing, and more. If you can’t decide on your own, we suggest you consult with a therapist in this regard.
If you are looking for a reliable mental health service provider to cater to your needs, look no further! New Era Rehabilitation is your ideal choice. We provide different mental health services, including:
