Group Therapy Quotes

“Tough love and brutal truth from strangers are far more valuable than Band-Aids and half-truths from invested friends, who don’t want to see you suffer any more than you have.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“While in principle groups for survivors are a good idea, in practice it soon becomes apparent that to organize a successful group is no simple matter. Groups that start out with hope and promise can dissolve acrimoniously, causing pain and disappointment to all involved. The destructive potential of groups is equal to their therapeutic promise. The role of the group leader carries with it a risk of the irresponsible exercise of authority.
Conflicts that erupt among group members can all too easily re-create the dynamics of the traumatic event, with group members assuming the roles of perpetrator, accomplice, bystander, victim, and rescuer. Such conflicts can be hurtful to individual participants and can lead to the group’s demise. In order to be successful, a group must have a clear and focused understanding of its therapeutic task and a structure that protects all participants adequately against the dangers of traumatic reenactment. Though groups may vary widely in composition and structure, these basic conditions must be fulfilled without exception.
Commonality with other people carries with it all the meanings of the word common. It means belonging to a society, having a public role, being part of that which is universal. It means having a feeling of familiarity, of being known, of communion. It means taking part in the customary, the commonplace, the ordinary, and the everyday. It also carries with it a feeling of smallness, or insignificance, a sense that one’s own troubles are ‘as a drop of rain in the sea.’ The survivor who has achieved commonality with others can rest from her labors. Her recovery is accomplished; all that remains before her is her life.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“I started crying when the group [therapy] was over because the last thing we did upset me - we all held a piece of the same cloth, leaned back and supported each other's weight. I couldn't do it. I bent my legs and elbows and stood very firm, yet . . .
I needed to feel supported, as i do in life, but i can't let myself be, and i pretend not to need that support.”
― Carol Lee, To Die For

“Explain this," Sarah said. "Anorexics think they're fat, right? Then why don't the rest of us think we're skinny?"
Lard snorted. "Cosmic injustice."
Alice looked up from braiding her hair. "Don't believe everything you think."
"I once had a shrink give me a piece of string and ask me to guess the size of my waist," Nicole said. "Then she measured me. I'd guessed my middle was fifteen inches smaller than it was."
"Does anyone really have a healthy body image?"
"Or whole society is distorted," Nicole replied.”
― Sherry Shahan