Is Group Therapy the Secret to Better Mental Health?

There’s much to unpack about The Bear, from the toxic family dynamics to the emotional chaos of professional kitchens. Still, a recurring scene may say more about mental health in America today than anything else. When life gets hard — and it always does on The Bear — Carmy heads straight to a humble, fluorescent-lit room, where he spends an hour listening to people who are struggling to come to terms with the ripple effect of alcoholism and addiction.

Al-Anon, a 12-step program for people whose lives have been profoundly affected by someone else’s drinking, has been around almost as long as AA — it was founded by AA’s founder, Bill Wilson’s wife, Lois, to support the friends and families of alcoholics — but in recent years, Al-Anon has increasingly appeared in the pop culture zeitgeist, specifically as a way for younger people to do some self-work. 

Scenes of meetings in The Bear are perhaps the most explicit example, but Judd Apatow’s TV series, Love, also explored an Al-Anon plot. There’s also a bite-sized Al-Anon reference in Girls, when Zosia Mamet’s character, Shoshanna, sets new boundaries with her friends in the name of her mental and emotional health. In each of these shows, attending meetings leads a character to address issues long-buried and face their self-destructive tendencies, be that emotional avoidance, obsessive people pleasing, or Carmy’s workaholism. 

RELATED: Find Community in a Supper Club

Beyond AA and Al-Anon, there are dozens of other 12-step programs dedicated to helping people recover from harmful addictive and behavioral patterns via the support of peers (Adult Children of Alcoholics. Debtors Anonymous. Co-Dependents Anonymous. The list goes on.)  And non-12-step group models are also rising in popularity, from local grief groups to Family & Systemic Constellation Work to the National Alliance on Mental Illness Family Support Group. 

Might someone discover something about themselves in a group support program that they can’t unlock in one-on-one therapy? According to many therapists, the answer is yes.