In the winter of 2015, I made the decision to end my career in the automotive industry and begin my journey to become a licensed professional counselor.  In the car business, there exists a simple maxim, ‘the better I do, the worse you do.’ I was tired of living under that maxim, and believed that becoming a counselor would offer a new way to work, ‘the better I become at what I do, the more likely the better you will do.’  

While I learned a lot by travelling weekly to Richmont (both experientially and academically), my most profound experience was the opportunity to co-facilitate three different story groups with by best friend in life, Justin Hitchcock.  I look back now on my facilitation of those groups and think: first, was I qualified to be doing that, and second, that was possibly the best experience I had in all of my graduate education.

Jamie D’Arcy (pseudonym) was a member of my third story group in Atlanta, GA.  I have stayed in touch with Jamie, and believe some of the work he began in group, and has continued to step into in his individual therapy, has changed him from the man I first met.  The man I initially met was depressed and living under the lie that it was better to try and manage other peoples’ feelings than be honest about his own.  Jamie’s life is a remarkable story about the possibility of change.

As I look back on my time in Atlanta, I think these groups began the idea for me that everyone in the group is working, even the facilitator. I believe this is the best part of group, the part that makes group therapy so beautiful; every moment of the group each individual member is presented with the opportunity to do their own work.  Jamie choose to write about his experience in the group, the very work he was able to find. If it touches a place in you that makes you think, ‘There might be something for me in joining a therapy group,’ I hope you will reach out so we can start that work together.

(Note: the story groups I facilitated in Atlanta did not have an umbrella of participant confidentially (by this I mean the very fact of being a participant in the group is confidential), but only content confidentiality.  The sharing of this story 1) is voluntary on behalf of Jamie D’Arcy, 2) is in line with Irvin Yalom’s writings about publishing former participant/client content, and 3) continues to protect the confidentiality/identity of the writer.)

The King of Pain Goes to Therapy

by Jamie D'Arcy

My experience with group therapy began with a lie. At our first meeting, Jeff clearly explained the guidelines of our time together, including: "you have to be here for you." He went on to explain that group therapy isn't effective if you're showing up to try to fix someone else. You have to be there to do your own work, and your work alone. He went around the room, asking each participant: "Are you here for you?" I believed each of the strangers in the room when they responded with a resounding "Yes," but then he got to my friends.

In the circle we were sitting in, I was flanked on either side by two of my friends. Jeff eventually asked them the same question, and they, too, responded "yes." "Bullshit" I thought to myself. I knew the only reason they were in that room was to fix me. I was the messed up one. I was the one going through a messy divorce, I was the one shunned by his family, I was the one hellbent on destructive behavior. They were only there to keep me from causing more damage; they were fine. I knew their responses to Jeff were lies, but I didn't say a word about it because, honestly, I was just grateful they were there with me.

One of the tasks in our group was for each participant to write about and share with the group one of our most painful memories. I volunteered to go first, mainly to thin out the herd. Surely once the group heard just a vignette from my story, they'd run for the hills. Step aside, Sting and The Police, I am the true King of Pain. I figured once the rest of the guys heard about my pain, they wouldn't come back to the group, and I would be back to my natural state: alone.

Much to my surprise, every single person showed up the following week. Not only did I not scare them off, they expressed a sentiment I had never experienced before, something I had only read about in books: empathy. When I shared my pain, their hearts broke along with mine. They were even intrigued by my story, and asked me questions in order to better understand it. 

As the weeks unfurled and I listened to the stories of my cohort, I was shocked to see how there was at least one aspect of each person's story that I related to on a personal level. One guy's upbringing was so similar to mine, I thought perhaps my abusive parents had raised him, too, unbeknownst to me. Even my friends who I had assumed were only in the group to try to cauterize my wounds showed up with wounds of their own. I went to group therapy expecting it to make me feel even more alone, but instead it did the complete opposite. 

In the end, participating in group therapy didn't fix me (everyone kept their promise to Jeff). Instead, it showed me I didn't need to be fixed.  What I really needed were other people to journey with me, to be willing to sit with me in my pain, and allow me to stand beside them in theirs. Instead of platitudes and advice, the gifts I received from the group were much richer. Their questions gave me new ways to see, engage, and understand my own story; their empathy was a shot of antivenom for the shame and loneliness I felt. While these weren't the gifts I was expecting, they were the blessings I needed, and I am thankful for them.