01 Jun Turbo Charge Your Life and Join the Group Therapy Club

Of course, individual therapy – from psychotherapy to psychoanalysis – has its merits.  Sessions can help you through crises, increase your self-awareness and enrich your life.  However, they can also turn into a comfort blanket – one that keeps you in the same cosy, non-growth place.

Unlike the growing trend for intense seven day group processes where, frankly, you are not allowed to await anything spiritually or emotionally.  Take the Rolls-Royce of group processes, The Hoffman Process (hoffmaninstitute.org.uk), an intensive route to help people cope better with stress, depression, anxiety and other issues.

Here, you spend a whole week immersed in your behavioural patterns, bashing them with cushions for hours, forgiving your parents and moving into spiritual and emotional balance.  It boasts both musician, Goldie and author, Oliver James, as aficionados. They key point is the learning gained – the personal development happens in a greatly accelerated way, thanks to the group dynamic.

“The group becomes an entity in itself”, says Malcolm Stern, who has been running groups for years, “where magic can happen in a much faster way than one-to-one therapy.  Members of the group become mirrors for each other and therefore have the opportunity to recognize their own shadow behaviour in the rest of the group.  Once you are aware of your shadow, then the advances really take place, then you are on your way to becoming a conscious human being.”  ‘Conscious’, it seems, is one of the new buzz words of the psychotherapeutic 21st century.

Path of Love

The Path of Love (POL) (pathoflove.net) is the revving newcomer to the UK group process parade.  In fact, it is the Alfa Romeo.  Spiritual singer Deva Primal has done it and says, “If has helped me in so many ways thought life, giving my voice new breadth and depth.”

During this intense seven day process, participants are called on to have the courage to expose their fears and expose their vulnerabilities in order to bring them more in balance with their authentic selves and each other.  There is no specific agenda, you make your own agenda according to your longings.

Participants get the opportunity to fast-track their personal development in an utterly transformative way.  “The atmosphere of fearless sharing plus the unconditional love and trust creates a group intimacy and openness which allows the participants to drop deeper and deeper into their authentic selves.” says Rafia Morgan, one of the co-founders of POL.  “That way they can deeply relax and find their hearts.  During the seven days, they can make shifts which would take 10 years of individual therapy; the container of the group is like a human potential hothouse.”

So if you’re looking for a turbo-charged, personal development challenge and a short cut to your more profound heart levels, then maybe one of these powerful group experiences might be right for you.