“It is I who create the very experience I thought was happening to me, and I who can transform it.” (Ecker, Hulley)
This quote comes from a book that talks about individual therapy but I think it is a good summary of what happens in a therapy group, which aims to bring about healing in the individual using the multiple perspective of the group setting.
When you are in a well functioning therapy group, you are mirrored and reflected by other group members. You see yourself – week after week – in their responses to you. You start noticing your reactions to others, and themes start to emerge. You will inevitably start seeing your part of the interactions, the part you play in creating your reality. As that reality starts shifting, you inevitably notice the part you play in it. You can play with the degree of activity you put into shifting your reality, your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You will be mirrored by others in a shifting way. You will be staging your own healing. Where you used to think you were a passive participant in the way others had seen you or you were not in control, now you will see the emerging patterns that have governed your life, in a life-affirming, healing way.
You will still see yourself in the mirror held up by others, you will recognize the beauty and the strength in who you are. You will feel the unnecessary parts melting away.
Ideally this is a process that happens in a well-functioning group. It has the potential to hold up that mirror and let you decide what you do with it.
