Group sessions?

[Torimori]

Hi all,

I have come across No Panic which delivers group sessions in my area. I am thinking about going to one (although have to negotiate childcare around my husbands shifts!) but not entirely sure how I feel about talking about things with a group of strangers.

It's very different being on here to walking into a room of people I do not know. However, on the other hand I keep thinking "well what have I got to lose?"

Has anyone got any experience of these sorts of sessions? Any good or bad comments welcome.

Thank you :)

[Holly Emma]

I think it's a great idea and you should go for it :) I would love to meet people like me and talk face to face cos sometimes well most of the time it's lonely having panics and no one around understands. I hope it goes well and give it a go :)

[sial72]

I personally have done group therapy and really liked it.
Once you realise you are all in the same boat it makes it easy to talk, plus it helps to realise we are not alone in all this and you might meet some nice people too. I made some nice friends xx

[MyNameIsTerry]

I had one-to-one CBT and avoided joining the local mental health charity because of the group sessions. Towards the end my therapist encouraged me to join up and I'm glad I did. These were just walk-in sessions on a weekly basis so the people would change but they also ran various courses based on CBT to cover wellness as well as recovery.

I would encourage it for the same reasons as have already been mentioned. There can be a useful social element to it, just like on here, and you could come away with really good friends like some at mine did. I didn't but I still talk to them when I see them around, but I guess with it being walk-ins not everybody was together all the time and going on a journey together. I spoke to a few of the guys who did go on the led courses and they spoke very highly of them and said they helped them immensely. MrAndy on here said he did group therapy and it really helped him.

I think it's something that you have to get into so don't judge it on the first session because you might be much more nervous and this will change, like it did for me. It took a few sessions but I found the co-ordinators (current & ex sufferers) very welcoming, supportive and understanding. They had a set of rules to follow so it's not as free on on here e.g. discussion on meds had to be general, not using medical terms much, etc and they kept things running well. The first session or two might also be about listening to the foundations and the sessions could get much more productive as you progress.

[Torimori]

Thank you for all your replies - I'm sorry I missed them all, I've had a really bad few days since upping my sertraline to 50mg and have not really been able to think straight.

It is a charity that are running them and I had a very helpful email back from the organiser following an initial enquiry I made. The next one is on Thursday morning at 10am so I think I'll give it a go, it can't hurt right?!

I'm not back at the GP for another two weeks so will ash him again for a referral through IAPT too. Has anyone tried hypnosis? My sister in law has recommended someone but I'm not sure I really believe that that sort of thing will work!

Thank you all again!

[MyNameIsTerry]

How did it go? Was it a walk-in session or a course format?

There are some hypnosis threads on here so it would be worth having a read. It doesn't seem to come up as much as it did last year and there was a practicing hypnotherapist that used to comment on threads. I think his name was Paul .