CBT Groups - any experiences?

[arcadia96]

I'm being offered the option of joining a weekly CBT Group in my area for anxiety through the NHS (as well as self-guided materials with telephone support). I must admit I'm not wild about the idea of a group for various reasons . It would be weekly on an evening (not even sure I could make it yet as I'm not free many evenings).

Any experiences, good or bad?

I don't have experiences of a CBT group, but following a severe episode of depression and anxiety earlier this year (and from which I am recovering but very slowly and with blips here and there)I have a Community Psychiatric Nurse visit me every week. She has been my lifeline and she has introduced ne to CBT and I have found it helpful. You may already know that it is a very simple theory and involves trying to replace negative thoughts that scare us and make us feel worse, with more balanced thoughts that help us to stop the cycle of scaring ourselves and feeling worse. There is more to it thanthat but that is it's basic premise.

I know what you mean about reluctancy to join a group (I would feel the same)but I would give it a go and if it is not for you then you don't have to go again. You can pay for private sessions of course. There are lots of books available and I have one called "Mind over Mood" which is an easy read and there are exercises to do too (not physical ones!) so you might find that helpful. It's on Amazon about £9.99 I think. Think the thing about the group though is the self guiding materials and the telephone support that go along with it. I think it would be worth trying the group for those reasons if nothing else, as on going support is really helpful.

I went to a group and found it really helpful in the early stages. The best thing for me was simply being with other people suffering with the same feelings. Not at any point did we have to say what it was that made us feel anxious or depressed. Some people wanted to and some didn't. It was all about how to deal with unhelpful thoughts. I started to find it a bit repetitive in the later stages of the course, but do think it has helped me to a certain extent. It's worth a try.

I went to an anxiety group for four weeks. I was of course anxious about going which we all managed to laugh about, especially getting to the the first one. It was for 2 hours in the afternoon. There were about five of us and two women probably in their twenties who took the course.

It was quite useful. We were given handouts and examples of how to manage different things, eg a trip to the supermarket. I found parts of the course helpful. We didn't have to talk much about ourselves fortunately.

There were two things that could've been improved, the course was half an hour too long and it would've been better I think to have had a man and a woman taking the course so that the men there felt more comfortable.

I am a big believer in CBT, but I've only had it one to one. It took a good few months for a breakthrough to come, but when it did I got 'better' quite rapidly. I don't know how I'd feel about a grop setting though