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Has Anyone Found Any In-Person Therapy Groups, And If So, How?

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enough

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I am hopeful but realistically pessimistic that there are groups meeting, somewhere, anywhere, for mutual support and discourse regarding our disorder. Along the lines of an AA meeting at best, along the lines of a chatroom at least, something less anonymous than this resource, but providing instant feedback and a more invested response from other members.
This forum is good, but it lacks the nuance of a conversation when any of us could be totally misrepresenting ourselves and everything that gets put up is time delayed and, both good and bad, totally anonymous. I have received a lot of help here, I hope I have helped make a difference for someone along the way, but the fact remains, there is more to be had from a group interaction in real-time and I seek it.
Anyone?
 
There's a few different ways you can go about this:

- By issue (eg. DV groups, CSA groups etc): in Aus, these are most often run by not for profit organisations. They range from informal, to highly structured (and some of the best and worst quality hands down).

- By illness (eg. Depression, PTSD): these are also often available from NFPs, but we also have some run by private health providers. Referrals are (in Aus) usually through your treating psychiatrist, but also often connected to specific treatment centres as day programs. They have the most funding, and most competition for quality. The quality is usually pretty good, but less flexible with chatting, because there's usually clear protocols attached to the treatment centre that enforce strict boundaries on inpatients and outpatient. They're usually time limited (eg a 12 week course). This is probably similar to IOP that you have in the US, but they come as both intensive, or once per week, here. Worth their weight in gold for both connections to people, and learning solid content.

-By treatment modalities (eg CBT, ACT and DBT): these are typically provided by private and public treatment centres (in Australia). The public ones are very often very basic, very crap, and very inflexible. They're also almost impossible to get into. The private ones are run the same way as illness-specific groups, and quality, referral and structure is about the same (usually good).
 
The sexual assault crisiis resource group where I live has both therapy and support groups. Not common in the USA but may be worth looking into in your area.
 
What @Sideways said.

By illness

Support Groups | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness is one of the best in the country, and nationwide.

Another is Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness + Find a Therapist …just switch the dropdown menu from find a > therapist >>> to find a > support group.

Similar to above GoodTherapy has Find Support Groups

More locally you can google your city/area name & PTSD support groups. There are several dozen in my area, but I live in a largish (few million) city.

MeetUp is very hit or miss, depending on your area.

Ditto religious sponsored groups (Catholic Community Services & Jewish community services have amaaaaaazing groups for kids in my area, no religious affiliation required, but not a lot for adults. In my cousins city they have both, meanwhile the next city over from mine has amazing adult groups, but very few resources for kids.)

By modality

Most trauma focused clinics (rather than solo practitioners or small group offices where solo practitioners share rent/admin/overhead costs) have support groups for trauma survivors & families. Larger clinics tend to have multiple groups with different focuses. Age is a common one (teens, 55+, parents of young children, etc.); as are professions (first response, military), as are common trauma types (sexual assault, child abuse, etc.), dual diagnosis, equine therapy, fly fishing, etc.
 
Thanks. I am already enrolled in an outpatient group through a referral from my psychiatrists office, but these have been so narrow or so broad scoped as to be worthless for the majority of the members. We are a niche bunch, I like the analogy of the bus, we are all on the bus for different reasons, going different places but we are on this bus together. I want a group for our bus, not just general traffic, not for everyone on our street, and not just for the people that got on at one specific stop.
 
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