4 Glenarm Terrace

Totnes, TQ9 5PY

1 The Plains

Totnes, TQ9 5DR

45 Queen Street

Exeter, EX4 3SR

Once and twice weekly analytic group therapy in

Totnes and Exeter, South Devon.

All our group therapists are experienced and qualified group analysts who have trained with the Institute of Group Analysis (London and Manchester) or with Group Analysis South West. They are all accredited members of the IGA or GASW, and at least one of the main professional organizations and adhere to their codes of ethics:

 The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), 

 The British Confederation of Psychotherapists (BCP), 

The British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)

To visit the main website for the South Devon Psychotherapy and Counseling Services, click here

For inquires and further information on how to contact us, click here

To see where we our groups take place, click on the addresses above

The principles of analytic group therapy

At the heart of Group Analysis is the idea that human beings are fundamentally social beings, who spend their lives with other people in one way or another.

The sources of problems that individuals encounter in their personal life and at work, are to be found not only in the dynamics of the groupings that they inhabit in the present, but also in the groups that they grew up in. These groupings include the family, friendship groups, schooling and so on.

On the basis of this S.H Foulkes, the founder of group analysis, reasoned that as one’s difficulties arise in groups, then these difficulties are best explored, understood and addressed specifically in a group context.

Group therapy is a particularly productive way of exploring personal difficulties in order to make changes at a fundamental level.

How does group analytic psychotherapy work?

• Groups meet on a regular weekly basis with a group therapist.

• Each group session is one and a half hours long.

• We offer once weekly and twice weekly groups.

• Group membership is limited to a maximum of 8 participants.

• A new member will join an ongoing group when a suitable vacancy occurs

• The group space is an unstructured space in which participants are encouraged to speak about their lives, their difficulties, aspirations, thoughts, feelings and dreams, as well as to engage with and respond freely to others and their stories.

• Group analytic psychotherapy is a long term therapy. Participants are invited to make an initial commitment of a year; however, it is not unusual for members to remain in the group for much longer.

• Safeguards: Group members should not know each other in their day to day lives; they are encouraged not to meet each other outside the group setting; strict confidentiality is maintained regarding the exchanges that take place within the group.

Some of the benefits of group psychotherapy

• One’s habitual ways of relating are often reproduced in the group setting. This gives the group the opportunity to examine and understand the difficulties that arise, and this in turn allows new more productive patterns of relating to emerge and be established.

• Participants can discover that other group members have had similar kinds of experiences to themselves, and this tends to reduce the sense of isolation and shame.

• Participants start getting a real sense of how they are experienced by others through feedback from, and interaction with, other members.

• The group context offers a relatively safe space in which new ways of relating can be thought about and tried out.

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