Why Groups Can Help Treat Trauma

Group therapy has been a widely accepted treatment option for more than 50 years.

Group therapy has been demonstrated to be both empirically effective and cost-efficient.

Groups can provide a safe, nurturing, non-judgmental environment where participants can feel accepted and emotionally supported.

Groups can offer relief from the aloneness and isolation disaster survivors often feel.

Groups can help members to find their voices, to share their experiences, to disclose painful feelings, and to speak the unspeakable.

Groups can validate, bear witness, and inspire members.

Groups can assist people to begin to restore their connections to others.

Groups can relieve the stigma and cultural barriers that often impede help-seeking.

Groups provide a context for education and access to accurate information.

Groups provide opportunities for members to help others thereby relieving the collective sense of helplessness of survivors and augmenting self-esteem.

Groups can help members to share and learn new ways of self-care and new strategies for coping.

Groups can help disaster survivors to begin to renew their disrupted sense of trust and hope in leaders, the world and other people.