Graduating to Group Therapy

At the age of 21, I landed my first salaried job and immediately dived into researching available benefits. For the first time, I noticed a new option. This employer offered an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). 

An EAP is an employee benefit program that assists employees with personal problems and/or work-related problems that may impact their job performance, health, mental and emotional well-being. EAPs generally offer free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services for employees and their household members.

I tucked this benefit away in the back of my mind until I was clear and confident about my need for it. Well, that moment arrived pretty quickly. I had been living with my partner of two years at the time. As the first home I'd ever lived in after a chaotic childhood, we experienced much of the same communication challenges. Where was I supposed to learn to communicate if I didn't pick up these skills with my family of origin? 

Saving Myself

I received feedback from my ex that I was always negative. He was always eager to offer feedback on areas for me to work on. He always expected more from me. So when he shared the feedback about me being more negative than positive, I listened and decided to get some help so that someone—who I didn't live with—could hold up a mirror for me to see who and how I was. Being this was the closest thing to stability I’d experienced by my late teens, I didn't want to burden him with my negativity. With the awareness of a new resource, EAP, I was ready to take the reins of my own evolution.

I interviewed three therapists before selecting one who would demand I be honest with myself and her. I saw her as often as I could afford the copay until Hurricane Katrina resulted in my relocation to Austin. Up to this point, I was the only one in the house committed to therapy.

Post-Natural Manmade Disaster

Now in Austin, and fresh off an evacuation turned relocation, I proposed we see a therapist together. We felt fine in the new city, to be honest. But there could have been a bit of delusion at play. Feeling fine, we collectively decided that couples therapy, post-Katrina, would be a good way to ensure we kept our heads screwed on tight. 

The pro bono chiropractor I was seeing recommended the therapist we committed to seeing for a decade, off and on. The therapist offered to see us for free until we could afford to pay her on a sliding scale. Due to our unusual circumstances, she broke her rule to see us individually in addition to visits together. This is rarely offered as an option. 

Post-Layoff

Before we hit the ten year mark with our first couples therapist, I believed I needed to do much more to heal. Near the seven-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and three months before my 30th birthday, I was laid off. It was a traumatic break. Once free, my body stopped holding the compounded pain that it had collected over three decades. It cracked. I cracked. 

I decided to freelance full-time and to step up my own healing process—seeing a hypnotherapist, naturopath, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) practitioner, and energy healers including reiki, Body Talk, Accunect and an akashic records reader. 

My Comeback

After working with this team for four-years, making my way through the slow exorcism that ensued and taking three weeks to travel throughout SE Asia with my then husband, I was ready to return to salaried, full-time work in an office setting. 

I contacted the EAP office in the first month after clarifying its terms and identifying a practitioner whose toolbox aligned with my interests and whose background aligned with my values. She was great. So great that after six sessions, she recommended I look into group therapy. She expressed her recommendation was an unofficial graduation. And it felt like good timing. 

I called around and received mindblowing estimates for the start-up and maintenance costs for group therapy. 

For example, the insights I received concluded a requirement to visit with the therapist three to five times one-on-one at the rate of $180, to total $540 to $900 before he or she decides to invite you to join the group. The groups, on average, are capped at eight people.

If you are invited to join the group, you are required to attend weekly visits each month indefinitely. The monthly rate at which you’re billed, on average, is $250. This is to be paid by check or cash, not credit card or flexible spending card.

So, I shut this option down.

New Beginnings

Disappointed, I kept my eyes and ears open for more affordable options and one appeared. My employer offered several options for group therapy. So I signed up for a free program that ran weekly through fall and early winter. The focus of the group was to reset default habits by breaking goals into smaller, achievable bits. There were weekly reading assignments, and I was charged with tracking my progress daily in the following areas: 

  • joy points (reasons for gratitude)

  • water consumption

  • exercise

  • food

  • mood

  • sleep 

I was grateful for the access to accountability partners, new tools, and more insights into my patterns.

If group therapy was recommended for you:

  1. Explore free support group options with specific outcomes; for example: 

  2. Research if your employer offers a free or reduced fee option; If not, search your city on Psychology Today for resources.

  3. Once you've narrowed down your list to three options, call and interview practitioners; inquire about their pricing, meeting schedule and expectations.

  4. Select the option that works best with your budget and proceed with promise into your healing process.

If you know of other free or reduced fee options for group therapy, please share below.