Group Therapy

Group therapy

Whether you choose to participate in group therapy alongside your individual therapy or on its own, sharing and learning alongside others can be a powerful experience that helps facilitate personal growth.

 

How much you choose to share in your sessions will always be up to you. But there’s a feeling of safety in knowing that what’s said in the group, stays in the group.

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What are the benefits of group therapy?

When we’re going through a difficult time, we can sometimes withdraw and feel very alone. Hearing from others who are also struggling helps you feel connected and less alone in your struggles.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of only seeing our experiences through our own perspective. When we start sharing our stories in the group, we often start to see things in a different light, helping us solve problems more effectively.
During the process, you’ll notice other people’s breakthroughs as they incorporate new skills into their life. This can help fire you up with hope and motivation to change.
Group therapy is the perfect setting to practice your social skills and to start re-engaging with people.

It’s often easier to give advice rather than take it. In the group setting, you’ll find that sharing your life experiences can help someone else – and in return, that helps you too.

Group Therapy

Group therapy online

All of our group sessions currently take place on Zoom, aside from our motion release group which is in-person. At the moment, we are running the following group therapy courses:

The DBT skills group is divided into 3 modules (with mindfulness skills incorporated into each of them). These are:

  • Distress tolerance – you’ll learn coping strategies – including self-soothing techniques – to help you better tolerate and survive crisis situations when they happen
  • Emotional regulation – we are emotional beings. At different times and to varying degrees, we all experience a range of complex emotions from happiness to sadness, to anger and fear. This is all part of being human. But we can learn skills that help increase our emotional resilience when difficult feelings come up. This module will teach you how to control and modulate extreme emotions so they don’t overpower you
  • Interpersonal effectiveness – strong interpersonal skills help us communicate our needs in healthy ways and interact more effectively at work, in our relationships and also in the wider world. This module will teach you how to deal with conflict and get your needs met in a way that is respectful to others, whilst also maintaining your self-respect

Our next DBT skills group runs as a 7-week module package and the next course will start mid June. The sessions run on a Monday.

Mindfulness is an important life skill that helps us pay attention to the present moment and to become more aware of our thoughts and feelings and the world around us.

 

Our Introduction to Mindfulness course offers a brief taste of mindfulness practice and theory. It’s ideal for anyone new to mindfulness or for those looking to explore some of the key themes and practices and how they can support them personally, in everyday life and work.

 

Our introduction to mindfulness course consists of 3 weekly sessions lasting one hour each.

This course is focused on helping you develop your “compassionate mind”. You’ll learn over 20 different experiential practices to help you reduce self-criticism, better manage difficult emotions and improve your relationships – both with yourself and others.

 

Anyone can benefit from this course, regardless of whether you are experiencing mental health difficulties or not.

 

Our compassionate mind training course is an online 8-week course.

This course combines mindfulness meditation with cognitive therapy to help you better manage depression and stress.

 

Through the practice of meditation and cognitive therapy, you’ll learn how to identify difficult thoughts and feelings and how you can sometimes become entangled in them in ways that aren’t necessarily helpful. You’ll build on your self-awareness, learn more effective ways of dealing with negative thoughts and generally increase kindness and compassion, both towards yourself and others.

 

Our MBCT group is an online 8-week course.

Motion release is a mind and body practice which blends humanistic psychotherapy, mindfulness and dance/movement therapy.

 

In this group, you’ll practice both verbal and movement exercises alongside music to help you express – and release – emotions in playful and creative ways.

 

Our motion release group is open to anyone – no dance skills are required! Group members of all abilities are free to move within their own range.

 

This 6-week, in-person course runs fortnightly. Starting date for the next group TBC.

Frequently asked questions

Our mindful living group is open to everyone. However, in order to join our DBT skills group, you will need to first have an initial assessment followed by an introduction session with one of the facilitator’s of the group. In order to join our schema psychoeducation group, you will need to be having individual schema therapy alongside the group sessions.
Our groups generally meet week once a week for 90 mins.
Each group is led by two facilitator’s and an assistant psychologist. The DBT skills group is led by Dr Alika Goodwin and Dr Anna Saunders. The mindful living group is led by Dr Emanuela Grima and the schema psychoeducation group will be led by Dr Alika Goodwin and Dr Elena Touroni.
The DBT skills group costs £120 per session (21 sessions in total). The schema psychoeducation group costs £120 per session (10 sessions in total). The mindful living group costs £650 (8 sessions in total).

If you are interested in joining any of our group therapy courses, contact our assistant psychologists using our contact form.

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Today

Athena Lazaridou

Athena is a Pilates instructor with 8 years’ experience in the field. After completing a Power Pilates Mat Certification in Athens, she went on to complete the Full Comprehensive Classical Pilates Certification with Equinox in Kensington.  She has been teaching Pilates at Equinox for the past 6 years in addition to her own private clients who she trains both face to face and virtually.

Athena has a passion for helping people get stronger and fitter as well as helping those recovering from injury regain their strength and mobility.  Over the years, she has worked with athletes to incorporate Pilates into their training and improve performance. Athena has also worked with prenatal and postnatal women who may be experiencing depression or other mental health difficulties and used Pilates to facilitate a positive impact on their mental health.

Athena is very passionate about improving physical and mental well-being and has recently incorporated Sound Healing into her work, as she believes it to be one of the best ways of ‘letting go’ and releasing stale energy whilst increasing greater self-awareness.