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The Benefits of Online Group Therapy (And

Follow us
Why You Should Try It)
Every day, whether we want it or not, we enter into a variety of relationships ! " (https://www.linkedin
with others: we worry about misunderstandings with relatives, we rejoice in (https://www.facebook.com/
(https://twitter.com/Med
common interests with a new acquaintance, we experience discomfort after
an accidental collision in the elevator, etc.

The importance of relationships cannot be ignored. But how to build them

so that you feel calm, confident, inspired?

After all, many of us are familiar with these feelings:

Awkwardness when communicating with strangers

Frequent thoughts about what others will think instead of enjoying

communicating with them

Di!culties with managing your feelings.

Because of such stress, many people close themselves in and retreat into
silence. After all, this is the first thing you want to do to protect yourself.

However, a more e!ective solution may be to undergo individual therapy or

to work with a group therapist. The focus is on the relationship between the
members of the group and the feelings that arise simultaneously.

With the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic, the main workflow of

thousands of people has moved from o"ine to online
(https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/mental-health-clinics-working-online/) , and
mental health professionals are no exception. Today we are aiming to help
licensed therapists and people seeking help understand whether online
groups are a way out.

The Features of Group Therapy Sessions

Online support groups solve emotional, behavioral and interpersonal
problems with the help of group dynamics – trusting social communication.
:
 In a group you can help your clients (https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/5-articles-
to-improve-your-patient-care/) to:

Talk about exciting problems without fear of condemnation

Get an outside look at serious life problems

Find out what our habitual behavior and way of thinking looks like from the
outside

Correct their erroneous emotional and behavioral attitudes in practice and

receive emotional support

Gain valuable skills in e!ective conflict resolution and building healthy

relationships with people.

Depending on the purpose of therapy, groups can be therapeutic and

therapeutic-thematic.

There are therapeutic groups for mutual assistance and for the correction of
symptoms of mental disorders, such as groups of alcoholics and drug
addicts.

Thematic groups are for therapeutic study of specific tasks:

For teaching emotional and behavioral self−control

For overcoming relationship issues

For working out conflict situations

For personal growth groups.

What Problems Can a Psychotherapist solve

online?
If you are a private practice manager, or you work on your own, then you
should get a closer look at the variety of problems patients want to solve
online. Here is the list of the most common complaints according to the
Mental Health Foundation (https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-
health/statistics/people-seeking-help-statistics) .
:
 Apart from common mental health issues mentioned in the pie chart, people
su!er from psychological bottlenecks that can be lessened with your help
online.

Medesk allows you to conduct telemedicine

consultations with patients via videoconference directly
on the platform. Transfer any planned appointments
online with the click of a button.

Learn more >> (https://www.medesk.net/en/telemedicine/)

Online group meetings help to overcome:

Social anxiety

Inability to relax

ADHD

Panic attacks

Apathy

Systematic stress

Emotional burnout

Low self-esteem.

8 Advantages of Online Type of Therapy

#1. Clarity/transparency of work
:
 The group does not analyze in detail the past of the participants, does not
look for the underlying causes of actions and thoughts. The observable facts
are evaluated - life events that have happened, the way that people think
and behave now.

Problems are resolved "here and now", in a confidential mediated

conversation between participants with their own kind - this helps
participants understand the therapy more clearly and transparently.

#2. Realistic
In individual sessions, an experienced specialist communicates with a client
one-on-one. You know how to choose the right wording and not cause a
patient discomfort.

A small group is as close to reality as possible. Participants communicate in

their usual style and recreate everyday activities.

Group therapy practice will clearly show the patients’ mistakes in social
communication, indicate destructive emotional reactions and behavioral
habits. It will also help them to look at life problems from di!erent angles –
there are many participants, and everyone has their own opinion.

#3. Trust of equals

In a group, you can safely and without fear of condemnation solve the most
painful problems of your clients: everyone is equal and in the same position.

Listen carefully, o!er emotional support to other participants, tell about

similar situations in their own lives, help eliminate mistakes together, and
learn how to interact with others. Of course, under your strict supervision.

#4. Fast and powerful e!ect

The large number of participants, long classes (from 1.5 to 3 hours), the
extensive range of methods for interaction between participants make
group therapy services more intensive and diverse than single-person
therapy.

Benefits of group therapy is a rich emotional experience and a peer support

in a relatively short time.

#5. Economy
Group therapy is cheaper than individual therapy. Group sessions can be 1/3
the cost of individual therapy, or be longer in session time. For a larger part
of the population, this type of mental help is more a!ordable. If you are
getting ready to start your own private practice
(https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/start-your-therapy-practice-2022/) , we
recommend you consider this option. This is a convenient and relatively
inexpensive way to establish yourself and acquire the first patients. Make
sure you get excellent feedback (https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/patient-
experience-management/) .
:
 In addition, even if a person is not in the mood and is silent, he remains a
passive participant. Thus, he can evaluate and adopt someone else's
experience, thoughtfully observe the behavior of others.

#6. It is for everyone

Almost everyone.

It is contraindicated only for patients with severe mental health conditions of

the brain and nervous system, in which communication in a group is
impossible.

So, even patients with schizophrenia undergo group therapy, because

classes teach how to communicate with others correctly and build
interpersonal relationships.

#7. Availability
A key advantage of psychotherapeutic virtual group sessions is the ability to
conduct them from your own home and anywhere in the world. This is very
convenient in cases when the client does not have the physical ability to go
to the therapist's o$ce.

For example, a person has planned a trip to another country, but does not
want to interrupt a psychotherapy course. Online consultation services are
convenient to use during business trips. So, this will be the smart option
when a person is in another country by profession or in connection with
moving. Or, being away from home, a person suddenly finds himself in
critical conditions, experiences stress, emotional overstrain. In this case, he
may urgently need psychotherapeutic help. Video consulting
(https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/telemedicine-preparing-to-work-online/) provides
an opportunity to get specialist support right now.

#8. Saving time

If most of your clients are residents of a megalopolis, such as London, given
its scale and the usual tra$c jams, they probably spend an impressive
amount of time on the road: from home to work, from work to home.

Agree, in this mode it is di$cult to allocate time for a trip to the o$ce, but it
is possible to devote 1-2 hours of an online session for this purpose.

If you work with non–transportable patients, a video chat is sometimes the

only way out for their successful treatment
(https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/trackable-patient-progress-for-mental-health/) .

The possibility of receiving psychotherapeutic help remotely is also

convenient for residents of small towns and settlements
(https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/telemedicine-in-rural-areas/) , where there are
simply no specialists capable of providing it. So, by implementing it into your
workflow, you’ll increase a number of patients
(https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/digital-health-patient-engagement/) and the
revenue.
:
 How is Everything Arranged Inside Online
Group Therapy?
Group psychotherapy stimulates a variety of psychological phenomena in
the participants in the process of work: transference, countertransference,
projection, projective identification, etc.

In the transference state, a person will see in one of the participants some
significant figure from his childhood. He will attempt to play a destructive or
positive scenario with him. If in the therapeutic group he can accept the
possibility of competition with other men, then in society he will be able to
build his career and life in a new way, from the position of a winner, not a
loser.

A therapeutic group will allow group members to give adequate feedback

about how they feel about a person and what he is like. One person
requested that he be unable to make friends. However, during group
therapy it turns out that a person talks only about himself. He wants to
always be the center of attention, and he is not interested in the lives of
other people. Accordingly, other participants will tell him about it, and he will
be able to change. Agree that this is much better than walking around
friends and asking: "What's wrong with me?".

Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, not everyone always manages

to attend therapeutic groups in real life. Therefore, the Internet format is
becoming increasingly popular, where participants first get to know each
other, and then begin to work on their psychological problems.

Working in an online group can be based on

di!erent schemes
1. Participants in pairs (or in teams) perform therapeutic exercises

2. Or each participant is given 10-20 minutes for individual work with a

psychologist

3. Or a participant may ask the group to discuss something in a discussion

format

4. In some Zoom meetings, theoretical blocks with information on psychology

are also included.

Examples of exercises used in online group

sessions
Video sessions don’t tie the hands of a mental health professional. The video
format of meetings (https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-
telemedicine-consultations-in-our-short-videos/) , on the other hand, gives him an
:
 opportunity to take advantage of modern achievements of the global
network. Here we are talking about dance therapy, video therapy,
metaphorical cards and so on.

See the table for some examples of group communication and exercises
during online sessions.

The best online group therapy is where you play the facilitator role. Listen
more than you speak, always keep that in mind.

Online Group Therapy Software

Do you work for a clinic, or run your own private practice? You'll need
software for the workflow anyway, so it doesn't matter.

If you’ve made up your mind to run online sessions you have three main
options.

1. You can try to join the online therapists’ community, for example, Therapy
Groups Online (https://therapygroupsonline.co.uk/) and cooperate with them.

2. Use free applications like Skype, Zoom, Discord for your sessions

3. Or you can enjoy the benefits of PMS (https://www.medesk.net/en/) and

combine the elements of your everyday routine in one simple place.

You will be able to conduct online patient appointments

directly in Medesk. There is no need to use personal
numbers, employee contacts or third-party programs.
Within the platform, all actions and connections are
performed on behalf of your clinic.

Learn more >> (https://www.medesk.net/en/telemedicine/)

:
 The Telemedicine (https://www.medesk.net/en/telemedicine/) module makes it
possible to run a group of up to 10 people via online video consultations
directly from the platform. If you have Internet access, you and your
patients can be anywhere. By the way, there are user-friendly apps for
di!erent operating systems.

Another advantage is that you can fill out all the reports during the online
session (https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/how-to-market-telehealth-services/)
without interrupting it. Making notes (https://www.medesk.net/en/blog/soap-
notes-that-work/) during the session is crucial, and we’ve got you covered
here. The user-friendly interface helps you to concentrate on the most
important thing: active listening of the patients.

As we can see, modern progress has made it much easier for people to get
help. We spend most of the day online: from work and ordering food, to
caring about their well-being. Keep up with the times and introduce online
groups into your practice! This way you will help more people with less
money.

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