Group Therapy in New York for the Patterns Only Other People Can Show You
There are patterns you cannot see by yourself. Not because you are not insightful, but because the pattern is the way you see. You can describe the dynamic perfectly in your individual sessions. You can map it cognitively. And you still cannot catch it in the moment it is happening to you.
Group therapy puts the pattern into a room where other people can see it, name it, and meet it differently than the world has met it before. New York Therapy offers therapy groups online throughout New York State, led by Travis Atkinson, LCSW, LICSW.
Why group reaches what individual cannot
In individual therapy, there is one other person in the room, and that person is paid to be calm and curious. You can learn a great deal in that room. What you cannot do, in that room, is be activated by people who are not paid to be calm and curious, which is to say the entire rest of your life.
Group is the place where the relational pattern shows up live, in real time, in the room. The colleague-type who triggers your withdrawal. The kind-but-anxious person who pulls your caretaker schema. The one whose certainty makes your defectiveness mode appear. You do not have to wait for the pattern to happen at work or at home. The pattern is already happening, and now there is a structured, safe place to meet it.
Group therapy here is for:
- People who do well in individual therapy and have hit a ceiling, who can name the patterns but cannot change them outside the office
- Clients ready to do schema mode work in vivo, with feedback from people who are also doing the work
- High-functioning professionals whose lives look connected on the outside and feel deeply isolated on the inside
- People recovering from relational injury who want to practice trust in a setting designed for it
- Clients who want the corrective experience of being known accurately by more than one person
This is process group, not psychoeducation. We are not running a curriculum. We are working with what happens between us, as it happens.
How groups actually work
Structure
Groups meet weekly for 90 minutes by secure video. Most members commit for a minimum of six months. Groups are small, typically six to eight members, and closed for the duration of a cohort, which allows the trust and depth that makes the work possible.
Before joining a group, every prospective member completes a screening process: an individual consultation, an orientation to the model, and an agreement about the group’s working norms. We are careful about composition. Group works because of who is in it.
The model
Groups at New York Therapy run primarily on Schema Therapy in groups, a researched group model developed by Joan Farrell and Ida Shaw, which Travis trained in directly. We draw additional elements from interpersonal process and EFT.
The work is experiential. You will do imagery, chair dialogue, and mode work in front of the group. Other members will be witnesses, participants, and at times stand-ins. The activations that happen in the group between members are part of the material, not interruptions to it.
What you are signing up for
Group is the most powerful relational work this practice offers. It also asks more of you than individual therapy does:
- You will be seen in ways you cannot control
- You will be activated by people you cannot choose
- You will hear feedback that is sometimes uncomfortable and almost always more accurate than the feedback you currently get
- You will be asked to stay in moments you would normally exit
- You will, if you stay, change in ways individual therapy alone usually cannot produce
If that sounds like the work, it is the work.
Why this practice
Travis trained directly under Dr. Jeffrey Young, founder of Schema Therapy, for more than two decades, and trained in Schema Group Therapy under the model’s group developers. He has contributed chapters to Creative Methods in Schema Therapy and teaches and supervises group clinicians internationally.
Group therapy run by a clinician with this depth of training is not the same product as a group run by a generalist. The methods are precise, the screening is real, and the structure is built to do what it claims to do.
Frequently asked questions
Can I do group instead of individual?
For most clients, group works best alongside individual work, especially during the first six to twelve months. Some clients eventually transition to group-only.
Will I have to share things I am not ready to share?
No one is forced to disclose anything. You set your own pace. The work happens at the depth you allow it.
Is online group as effective as in-person?
For the model we run, yes. Schema group methods adapt well to video, particularly when the clinician has trained specifically in the adaptation.
Do you take insurance?
New York Therapy is out-of-network. We provide superbills for partial reimbursement under most PPO plans.
When does the next group start?
New cohorts open periodically. Book a consultation and we will tell you the timeline of the next available group and whether your fit is right.
If you are ready to be seen
Group is the work after the work. It is for people who have done the individual piece, who can name the pattern, and who are ready to meet it where it actually lives, in the room with other people.
Consultations are free and run 20 minutes. We talk about what brought you here, your individual therapy history, and whether the next cohort is the right fit.