Group Therapy

In addition to learning proven strategies to manage specific problems, group therapy and workshops offer a unique opportunity to benefit from diverse perspectives, to gain ideas and receive support from others, and to feel less isolated in your struggles.  

New Leaf Psychology is currently offering the groups and workshops listed below. Please contact us for further details regarding our current schedule.

GROUP THERAPY

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Skills Group

for teens and adults who struggle to cope with sudden and intense emotions

Create a life worth living
Increase your ability to tolerate distress
Manage your emotions
Reduce impulsive and self-destructive behaviors
Engage effectively in relationships

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Group is a program designed to provide alternative skills and strategies for individuals who tend to become overwhelmed by their emotions and engage in behaviors in response to these emotions that they would like to change. Skills can be helpful to reduce a wide range of behaviors, including aggressive behaviors, self-harm, substance abuse, binge eating, spending, gambling, social withdrawal, and procrastination.

The group teaches four key sets of skills that enable participants to respond to intense emotions in more effective ways. 

Emotion Regulation
Understand your emotions
Manage painful thoughts and emotions
Reduce emotional vulnerability and suffering
Increase positive emotional experiences

Interpersonal Effectiveness
Attend to and maintain healthy relationships
Communicate effectively and negotiate relationships
Balance priorities and increase self-respect

Distress Tolerance
Survive and cope in times of crisis
Interrupt impulsive behaviors that make crisis situations worse

Mindfulness
Be in control of your mind instead of letting your mind be in control of you
Be fully in the moment with an attitude of openness and curiosity
Decrease judgement and criticism

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an empirically supported treatment that helps people learn and use new skills and strategies to build a life they feel is worth living. Research has shown improvements in suicidal behavior, non-suicidal self-injury, depression, anger control, emotion dysregulation, avoidance, and anxiety.

New Leaf Psychology Centre offers both an adult group and a youth/teen group. The teen group requires attendance of a parent. Parents attend the group with their child in order to support the application of new skills in the home. The format of the group is classroom style, with new skills being taught each session with opportunities to ask questions and practice. Tasks are assigned between sessions for additional practice.

 

Pain Management Group

for adults struggling with chronic pain related to injury or illness

Live a more meaningful and fulfilling life despite pain
Increase your pain tolerance
Capture small joys in the moment
Reengage in valued life activities

The Pain Management Group is a 10-week program designed to provide an alternative strategy to pain management for those struggling with chronic or persistent pain, whether that pain is related to illness or injury. The goal of the group is to offer skills to help participants shift their attention away from their experience of pain, towards the creation of a rich, full, and meaningful life. Group content focuses on improving functioning rather than reducing pain, since focusing on pain can increase distress and thus be counterproductive.

Four key skills are taught which enable participants to respond to persistent pain in more effective ways.

Acceptance
Be open to (tolerate) discomfort
Accept that painful experiences are out of your control

Perspective
Let go of difficult and unhelpful thoughts and beliefs
Remove pain from the central focus of life
Focus on your values and sources of joy

Awareness
Be fully in the moment with an attitude of openness and curiosity
Acknowledge the joys in life

Engagement
Develop and stick to goals based on values and joy rather than pain

The therapeutic approach on which the group is based is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). One of the main tenants of ACT is to accept what is out of our control while committing to change what is within our control. Thus, this treatment does not focus on reducing pain directly, but rather focuses on improving quality of life, which indirectly reduces the experience of pain.

Research has found ACT to be associated with increased acceptance of pain, greater flexibility in thinking, improved overall functioning, greater engagement in life, reduced anxiety and depression, and less pain.

 

Mindful Self-Compassion Group

for adults who struggle with self-criticism

Motivate yourself with kindness rather than self-criticism
Cope with difficult emotions more easily
Transform challenging relationships
Clarify and live within your values

The Mindful Self-Compassion Group is a 9-week training program designed to cultivate the skill of self-compassion. This group teaches core principles and practices that enable participants to respond to difficult moments in their lives with kindness, care and understanding.

Three core principles and practices of self-compassion are addressed in group sessions.

Self-Kindness
Allowing ourselves what we need

A Sense of Common Humanity
Knowing we are not alone

Balanced, Mindful Awareness
Openness to the present moment

Research on Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) has shown that it provides emotional strength and resilience. Specifically, it has been associated with emotional wellbeing, reduced stress, anxiety and depression, maintenance of healthy habits such as diet and exercise, and satisfying personal relationships.

 

Executive Functioning Skills Group

for children with ADHD or ADHD-like symptoms

The Executive Functioning Skills Group is designed to address academic, emotional, and interpersonal challenges related to difficulties with executive functioning. This group teaches several strategies to address each of the specific executive functioning difficulties commonly experienced by individuals struggling with ADHD.

Eight core executive functioning skills are targeted during group sessions.

Planning/Prioritization
Create roadmaps to reach your goals
Decide what to focus on, and what to let go of

Task Initiation
Begin projects without procrastinating
Increase efficiency

Time Management
Estimate your time and allocate it
Meet deadlines and hold limits

Organization of Workspace and Materials
Create and maintain systems to keep track of information and materials

Response Inhibition
Take time to evaluate the impact of behaviors and decisions
Think before you act

Working Memory
Follow multi-step directions and complete complex tasks

Sustained Attention
Attend to situations or tasks when they are tedious

Goal-Directed Persistence
Set goals and follow them through to completion

Research on the effectiveness of executive functioning skills coaching, in both individual and group format, is in its infancy.  Although interventions have shown improvement in executive functioning, studies are inconclusive as to whether they improve targeted goals (e.g., academic achievement). Thus, although this group provides general skills training, every effort is made to keep the experience personalized to be sure each child or youth’s unique difficulties are addressed.

NEW GROUPS ARE FORMING REGULARLY, CONTACT US FOR THE NEXT AVAILABLE START DATES.