Amira. Why didn’t you mention this? Group therapy for anxiety
Amira is confident at work, but anxious in social situations. She wants to make new friends, but feels that she's being 'dropped'
She joins a group, and she's helpful to others. But she feels that her own problems are just not that important
One session, just before the end, she starts to talk about being attacked on her way home from working late. She’d managed to get away, but had been left shaken
The group are dismayed: why didn’t you mention this before?
Amira realises that she’d always been the quiet one at home. Two loud brothers, and parents who didn’t talk about feelings. She’d go to her room when she was upset, hoping that someone would come and talk to her. But no-one did
The following week, for the first time Amira opens the group conversation. The others are delighted
Amira now has her true place: both giving and receiving. She’s notably more confident