78 [Healing Series] Finding a Therapy Group
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/78
Haley Radke: This show is listener supported.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.
In our last Healing Series episode we learned about what group therapy is, and today we are going to learn how to find a therapy group. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pam Greenstone. Welcome Pam.
Pam is a licensed professional counselor in private practice in Austin, Texas, and has been leading psychotherapy groups since 2002. And last time you were on the show, Pam, you told us all about group therapy. What it is, some of the differences between being in group therapy versus support groups or self-help groups.
And you really sold it to me. I would love to go, but like, how do you find a therapy group? I had never even heard of it, really, until you approached me.
Pam Greenstone: Wow. Yes. So it's a big task. Yeah. I'm glad you asked. The first resource I wanted to introduce was the American Group Psychotherapy Association.
It's a national and oftentimes international organization and they have a great website. It's www.agpa.org. And they have a list of certified group therapists all over the country. So if you happen to live in a city where one of the members of AGPA live, then you might be able to find one that way by going onto their website, exploring it, because they have a ton of information about what it is to be in a group, what it's like to be in a group and how to find a group therapist.
But that would be maybe step one. And if you live in a big enough city or happen to live in a city where a member lives, you can find it that way.
I wanted to talk about the challenge of finding a group therapist that is also adoption competent. I feel like I have a lot of work to do in educating my own community of group therapists on how to work with adoptees and in a more effective and helpful way.
And so I'm doing that in my local community, the Austin Group Psychotherapy Society, and also through AGPA.
So I think it's going to be important to ask questions of any therapist that you call that might have a group, asking questions about how long have they been running groups. Do they have any existing groups that you can join?
Because it can be wonderful to join a group that's already been going for a while. You'd really benefit from that and all the work that they've already done up to that point. But then also asking questions about their adoption competence and how much experience do they have working with adoptees? What are their beliefs about that? What kind of training do they have that's specific to that? Have they attended any conferences?
I think both are important and it might be, in a way, like finding a needle in a haystack a little bit. I know when I went to Indiana for their conference and spoke about group therapy, ahead of time I looked online at all the different group therapists in Indiana as much as I could on the web, and then I reached out to all of them. It was about 30 emails that I sent out and I heard back from two. And I know it was really surprising.
Haley Radke: No one needs more clients. I don't know.
Pam Greenstone: What I think it was, I asked specifically if they had experience working with adoption. And so I just wanted to give Indiana folks kind of a list. If after seeing this, you decide to go and join a group, here are two group therapists.
But I didn't hear enough back. I didn't hear from anyone that felt confident in that way. And so it might be a situation where, and by the way I didn't really have any group therapists in my own experience that are what I would call adoption competent, yet I was still able to get a whole lot out of group because of what group provides and how much you're benefiting from all the wisdom in the group, from all the members.
Haley Radke: Can I pause you there because I do want to ask you, I feel like you're a unicorn and so we're likely not gonna find group therapy for adoptees. Right?
You're talking about just joining a group that's already intact, and you're gonna be an adoptee in that group, but that doesn't mean that it's gonna be a room full of adoptees.
Pam Greenstone: That's right. That's rare. I am attempting to start one in the fall because I think it would be incredibly healing and helpful for people and wonderful.
I think that we're on an edge here in terms of what's happening in the adoption world, so I think they'll become more and more common. But until that time, join another kind of group and you can ask a group therapist, do you have any groups that also include another adoptee?
That would be a way of getting something like that for yourself or asking that therapist to read material, like the Primal Wound or other books. And I know we want to steer away from that. We want to start demanding adoption-competent therapists, and I absolutely agree with that.
But I also feel like if you can be assertive in those moments with group therapists, you might find that they might know more than they think they do, number one, and they might be open to learning and being something different for you, which is what I have found with my own group therapist. I've had to teach my group therapist about it and the other members in the group, and it's been actually very good for me. But I have a lot of experience in groups, so I don't think I could ask everybody to do that.
Haley Radke: But I do think there is a great power in being in a group of other people as an adoptee and educating them about what your experiences are. Not just to educate them, but so that you can understand, I can actually express these things and we sometimes talk about it.
I say, you should read this or you should watch this because it's going to give you language with which to express yourself. And we keep all of this stuff stuffed down. And yes, when we're with other adoptees, you don't have to explain that stuff because we all have the same kind of knowing.
But in this scenario, I think maybe that's a benefit.
Pam Greenstone: Good point. I'm getting goosebumps because that is such a good point. Because there is something so powerful about asserting that voice in a group therapy setting over and over again and teaching yourself that it's valid in all the layers, right?
Because sometimes when we are in group, and we know this from individual therapy as well, we feel like four years old, right? Other times we feel like we're 12 years old, and so we hit different parts of our development, different parts of our memory. And if we can assert it in those moments and then assert it more in our adult moments, we will just master, right, that capacity to understand when it's happening, put words to it in our own minds, and then find ways of sharing it that are effective in getting your own needs met.
And sometimes our need is to just express it. To assert it. And then other times we need something from the other person. And so we can get better and better at saying, I'm feeling hurt and scared right now because this part of me has just been, we've tapped into my adoption experience and this is what I need from you right now in order to feel more secure.
That's powerful stuff. Yeah. And I think you might be right that in our families sometimes we are the only adoptee. And so practicing in a setting that's similar to that might be helpful. But I have had one group in my life and there was another adoptee in there, and it was incredibly helpful and I loved it.
And it did make me feel more empowered to keep using that voice. And to value my own experience and trust it because I think for a certain part of the adoptee community that part of us that needed to talk about it pretty often was invalidated over and over again in different ways.
Not out of malice, but just out of ignorance. And so we trained ourselves to not either see it as valid or to not put words to it. And so this is a way of over and over again doing something very different that will change our idea of self in a very positive and grounded way.
Haley Radke: Okay. So we want to find a group. We're okay with only one other adoptee in the group and we're okay with that. But yes, I don't know, what's the next step?
Pam Greenstone: So I like to tell folks that they don't have to decide to join a group. They just have to decide to go to an intake session.
Because what that does is break it down into a more manageable and realistic goal. Because almost always, especially in the groups here in Austin, there are several intake sessions. And in those intake sessions we gather history, we get to know one another, right? The therapist gets to know the client, and the client gets to know the therapist to make sure it's a good enough fit.
We go over the agreements and see where those might get hard for people. And then we also just start describing what it'll be like to be in a group. And so then together with the therapist, you can decide, over time, right, over the few sessions if you feel ready.
So anyway, I like to break it down into smaller steps, decide to go to the first intake appointment, then decide to go to the second intake appointment, then decide to go to the third one, and then together you decide, is this a good time to do group?
Or maybe I can do a little more individual therapy with the therapist first until I feel a little more secure, remembering that the intake process will give you more data that will help you in making the decision.
Haley Radke: Okay. So you're getting more data from the therapist. Is this group right for me? But you're still feeling like, I don't know, is this actually right for me? Kind of feeling anxious? How do you overcome that? Make the phone call? Or please just have an email booking form because then I don't have to talk to anybody. How do you get over that?
Pam Greenstone: I think it's important to remember that anxiety about joining a group is very normal.
In fact, if it's not there, I get very curious about that for people, and I try to help them bring it into their consciousness because there is a natural human reaction to joining a group. It's pretty regressive. And so we're going to have nervousness about it. But then for each individual person, it's different what that anxiety is about.
And you can explore that either through journaling or through talking to your therapist or through talking with friends. What is it that I'm scared about? Be careful about which friends you talk to because they might have their own stuff around it and they might not be all that encouraging, but just exploring it could lead you to goals that you'll have for group.
Or exploring it could help you just understand yourself better. And then even before you've joined the group, you're already working, you're already learning things about yourself. So I think that's about it with that.
Haley Radke: Okay. Thanks so much for sharing about that. Is there anything else that you want to tell us about being in group therapy as an adoptee or just joining another sort of support group in another form if we're not able to move forward with this in our city?
Pam Greenstone: I'm thinking about the state of our world right now and how disconnected people are and feel. And how virtual connections don't necessarily feed those parts of us that long for authenticity and connection with other people.
And so if you can add any kind of group to your life right now, whether it's a supper club or a book club or a support group or self-help group or a therapy group, you are going to benefit from that, especially in our current world and in the current climate. It's the time for group therapy, even though it's maybe the hardest thing for people to do right now given how disconnected they are, even though they're in hundreds and thousands of connections.
I guess I wanted to share that.
Haley Radke: There's something so powerful about just being in-person with other people and really showing up as your true self, I think. So thank you. Thanks so much for telling us about this and helping us do our little steps towards finding a group. That's perfect.
Pam, where can we connect with you online? And if you're in Austin, I'm jealous, where can we find out more about your groups?
Pam Greenstone: Just go to my website where there is an online scheduling form.
Haley Radke: Oh, come on. I'm so glad I set that up because I wasn't kidding and I did not know you had an online form.
Pam Greenstone: I do. It helps people take that step. It's www.pgreenstonetherapy.com and my email address is just pamgreenstone@me.com. If you'd rather just send me an email, that's okay too.
Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us all about group therapy.
Okay. You have to let me know if you try and look for a therapy group. I'm so curious. Are you already in group therapy? I want to hear about your experiences. If you are in group therapy or you're interested in it, come and find our posts about this episode on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter and reply and let us know because I'm so curious.
I'd love to hear from people who have actually been in group therapy and what their experiences have been. If you are the only adoptee in the room, what that's like or if you are in a group with other adoptees, even if it's a peer-led support group, I'd love to hear about your thoughts about that.
The more ways we can find to connect with each other in real life, to look for a therapist that really understands us, to pursue healing in a variety of ways, if it's reading or through art, any of the things that we talk about here on the show. I'm so proud of each and every one of you that actually goes out and does something kind for yourself, like pursuing healing in this way.
So share with us on our social media profiles, direct message me if you'd like. I'd love to hear about what you are doing to find healing in this super fun adoptee life, and thank you so much for listening.
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