You come to individual therapy looking for self-understanding. The inner work with your therapist can be rich with insight and tools. But over time, another element might emerge. Your relationships with others hit the same old walls of self-protection, rejection, and resentment. Group therapy doesn’t replace individual therapy: it adds another way of doing the inner work.

The group is not about fixing each other—it is about understanding ourselves and how we show up with others. “ Most men grow up without any real emotional education. They’re told to stay tough, to push through, to ‘figure it out on your own.’ They learn to speak the language of competence and problem-solving, not the language of sadness, fear or vulnerability. And when those feelings do show up, they can come out sideways: withdrawal, irritability, anger, overworking, or simp

By Stacey Schmitt, MSW, LICSW The holiday season can be bittersweet. It is a time that offers warmth, celebration, and connection, but may also bring added stress, tension, and pressure. Balancing work demands, expectations around family obligations, and personal needs is often challenging. For some, it may impact mental health & wellness. An effective tool that can help with those moments is a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy distress tolerance skill called Self-Soothing with