Kedar K Rao

Group therapy is a space of introspection, growth, and transformation on relational, personal, financial, social, familial and career dimensions (depending on what you bring in and want to work on). Group therapy is a microcosm of your world. However, here we consciously look at our ways of relating and interacting with the world.

Like the way, individual session don't have themes. My long term therapy groups don't have themes, and are open ended. It is conversation and discussion based.

Group therapy provides a possibility of growth that Individual therapy cannot provide. This is not to say that individual therapy is not important. It depends on where one is in their journey of development, and one's needs.

Some of the benefits are:

1) Location of occurrence of problem: In individual therapy, it is only possible to talk about the problem. But very rarely does the problem show up in the session. Eg: In individual work, we often talk about all relationships, problems and difficulty that happens outside of therapy. But in group work, the relational difficulties, problems happen in the session in the presence of you, me (therapist) and other members. We can experience a difficulty, and then think about what happened.

2) Parts work: We often have parts of us that we dislike. Say you hate your own anger, and therefore you have rejected/disowned it. What would happen if you meet someone else in the group who gets angry quite a lot? Most would probably attack the other for being angry. However, in the group space, we would pick up on this dynamic, and wonder our own relationships with anger, and eventually develop a healthier relationship with it.

3) Similarly, on the level of family. Say you don't have a good relation with your mother/partner/boss. And there is a mother(/...) in the group. Being in the group would provide a rich space for both of you to work on your relationships with each other, and simultaneously with familial counterparts.

In my frame of group work, its essential that you are not in any other therapy space simultaneously.

This is similar to the reason as to why one is not recommended to be in 2 individual therapy spaces at a given point. The reason being that it causes splitting. i.e. One would take some parts of oneself to one therapist and other parts to the other therapists.

Group therapy requires one to have very important yet difficult conversations. Perhaps out of fear of those conversations, or anticipating judgement, one might take those conversations to their individual therapist. This splitting, in the long run, takes away from the true potential of group work, sometimes even doing harm to the relational work.

Therefore, it is recommended that you finish the individual work you are currently in, and when you look to find a new space, you can contact me :)

I would facilitate the group, provide my inputs/get others to share their thoughts, but most importantly create the right environment for open communication, expression, and healthy conflicts.

These session happen every week at the same time and same day. With the exception of the 12 weeks that we are not meeting in a give year.

The duration of the sessions is 90 minutes. The group for people in Bangalore meets on Sunday mornings at 9-10:30am. This is a group that predominantly meets online, and meets in person once in 2 months on mutually agreed upon dates. I run one more group that only meets online. This group is on Thursday evenings 7-8:30pm. We would meet online using the Zoom platform.

There is a working plan for my groups to meet in person for a therapy retreat once a year.

I work based out of a monthly model. A given year has 52 weeks, of which I work 40 weeks. You would be paying for the 40 sessions spread across 12 monthly installments. Some months might have 5 sessions (because there are 5 weeks in that month), other months you might only get 2 sessions in that month (for example in December I take the last 2 weeks off). But regardless, you would be paying a monthly installment, keeping in mind that at the end of 12 installments, you would have received 40 sessions, regardless of the number of session in one particular month.

This is similar to the idea of paying a course fee, or a college fee. However, instead of paying for a whole year in one or two installments, you would pay in 12 monthly installments.

The monthly fee would be in the range of INR 5500-7500 for people in India. You are welcome to choose something that works for you in this range based on where you are financially.

Some months, there might only be 2 sessions, other months there might be up to 5 sessions. This is because the number of sessions depends on the number of weeks in that month, and if there is a break in that month.

With respect to the fee, the monthly installment fee is not based on the number of sessions in that given month. The monthly installment fee is calculated as follows: Session fee x 40 sessions in a year / 12 months.

This is a vulnerable and sacred space. It wouldn't be possible for you to try a group session. It would evoke strong feelings in others present (Eg: Imagine that you are in a vulnerable space and someone else comes for one session to watch you)

We can meet a couple of times individually, and take a call if this is for you. These sessions would be used to explore potential fears, possibilities, expectations, culture, etc that you may have about the group. After which, we take an informed decision to join the group.

My groups are long term groups. They are on-going groups, to which you would join. They are set up to evoke a sense of revolving nature of life (people will come into our lives and people will leave). This is an essential existential learning that comes in with this long term set up of this group. Joining an ongoing group also evokes themes of siblings, sharing, newness, etc. All important aspects to be explored.

You are welcome to stay till your journey is with the group is done. I.e. you feel like you don't have anything else to learn from this space or would like to find a different space for the next leg of your growth. In short, you (along with the inputs of the group) get to decide how long you would like to stay in the group.

As this group involves deeply engaging in each others lives (others are invested in your life, and you are with theirs), there is a commitment period of at least 8 months. This commitment period is set kept in mind that your joining, and leaving has a deep impact on other's lives. It is also to give time for the necessary growth of a relationship (think of how you and your best friend grow closer as you spent more time with each other).

I understand that a commitment is scary. Which is why we would meet a couple of times individually, before joining the group to take a call if this is for you. These sessions would be used to explore potential fears, possibilities, expectations, culture, etc that you may have about the group. After which, we take an informed decision to join the group.