There are many ways in which group therapy can help you. These include:

1. Helping you realize that you aren’t the only one with such problems. Often people believe their feelings and thoughts are “crazy,” “weird,” or at least, abnormal. They feel no one else has thoughts and feelings like theirs. Being in a therapy group you usually learn that your feelings and thoughts are human, natural and not so uncommon. This experience may help you accept yourself more fully.
2. Helping you translate insight into desired changes in your life. Sometimes people have learned a lot about themselves but find it difficult to put their insights into practice. The therapy group can be a relatively safe place to practice new behavior.
3. Helping you learn how other people see you. People always have blind spots, where they aren’t aware of things that they do that get them into trouble with other people. They may also be unaware of things they do that people like. In the group, people will give you feedback about how they see you. This will help you see yourself as others see you and may help you develop a more balanced view of yourself. Hearing feedback isn’t always easy. Sometimes it can upset you, but it may motivate you to change something about yourself you hadn’t realized needed changing - or to relax about something you were worried was unacceptable, but which turns out not to be a problem for others.

The more you can put the following suggestions into practice, the more you will benefit from the group and also be helpful to other group members.

1. Think about your goals for group therapy and talk about them in the group. Your goals should be specific as well as general. A general goal might be "I want to relate better with people." A more specific goal might be: "I want to be more emotionally close to people," or "I want to know when I’m angry and express it appropriately."
2. Listen as carefully as you can to other group members. If you don’t hear what people say, you cannot communicate with them. As you listen to others, try to put yourself into their shoes. What is their primary feeling? What is their perspective about what is happening? How do you think their wounds in childhood affect them in this situation? Think about their qualities and behavior, including defensive behavior, which might also be characteristic of you. As you learn about others, you will broaden your knowledge of yourself.
3. Be aware of your own feelings, thoughts and memories. In addition to listening to others, also listen to yourself and your body sensations.
4. As soon as you are able, tell other group members and the therapists about your feelings, thoughts and memories that arise as they are talking or at any time during the session. Also tell them about feelings, thoughts and memories that arise about group members, the therapist(s) or the group as a whole between sessions. If you have a dream about anyone in the group, be sure to tell the dream in group.
5. Try to tell your reactions directly to the person or persons you are having them about. Your reactions will be toward individual group members, toward the leader(s), toward subgroups or toward the whole group. For example, you might talk about feeling closer to a particular group member. You might also talk about wanting to protect one group member from what you felt was an attack by a third member. You might talk about how you personally relate to a feeling other group members are expressing.
6. When bringing things up that feel very personal or embarrassing, don’t force yourself. It takes time to trust people. Tell people about yourself as you feel your trust building. You need to feel supported by other group members in order to talk about difficult things. Talk about your hesitation, rather than making yourself talk about something before you are ready or withdrawing and not saying anything.
7. Think of the group as a place to experiment with new ways of relating to people. The more you practice acting differently from the "false-self" roles you are usually stuck in, the more you can become your true self. Let us say for example, you learned growing up that you would be rejected or abandoned if you expressed anger. In the therapy group, you may eventually risk expressing anger. If you do so, you may find that the feared catastrophe does not occur. As a result, you can get the anger out, feel less frustrated and feel closer to others because you're not hiding anger.
8. When you want feedback from anyone, ask for it. In real life, when people don’t like you, they usually avoid you and you can never be sure why this has happened. In group therapy you have the opportunity to learn about some of these hidden reactions others have to you. As you are able, even though it is scary, ask people for feedback about yourself. Your questions can be specific, e.g., "What did people think about what I have just said?"
9. Ask for help when you feel the need for it. Don’t be afraid to take too much time for yourself. If you are not sure whether you are taking too much time or too little time for yourself, ask the other group members.
10. Ask yourself when the group feels more helpful to you and when it feels less helpful. What happens when you find the group most useful? Try to make these things happen. Tell the group when you think it is working well. Also, try to speak up if you think the group is stuck and nothing valuable is happening.
11. Take some time to think about the group, the group members and the leader(s). Whom do the group members and leader(s) remind you of? What questions, however far out, would you like to ask them?

I have reviewed and understand these guidelines.