From Stress to Support: Experiencing Group Therapy Therapeutic Factors in an 8-Month Application Support Group
Tianyi Su
Doctoral student
Professional Psychology Department, The George Washington University
Abstract
Last September, I joined an online support group for students applying to graduate programs in psychology. The group was formed not as an open online community but through a selection process: members were recruited via professional networks and personal referrals, followed by a screening interview conducted by the leaders. The leaders were a professor and a psychologist based in the U.S., and their initial goal for this group was to promote school psychology, a field still unfamiliar to most Chinese students. In China, such programs have only appeared in the last few years, and even many psychology students cannot distinguish school psychology from school counseling. This group aims to serve those members who are applying to school psychology PhD, PsyD, and other graduate programs in the U.S. Although not every member eventually entered this specific field, the group quickly became a valuable space for people aspiring to join a psychology graduate program to network with professionals and peers, learn about the U.S. education system, support Chinese immigrant families in the U.S., and help each other through the application season.
Following my role as a clinic volunteer, I was selected by the supervising psychologist to be a coleader of the group from September 2024 to April 2025. In this role, I managed logistics and facilitated communication between leaders and members to ensure alignment on goals and tasks. We met weekly on Zoom for 90 to 120 minutes, and the communication was mainly in Mandarin. The group began with 11 members. Over time, some members left as their life plans changed, and others joined, maintaining a membership between 10 and 18. Participants came from diverse backgrounds, includingundergraduates, young professionals with several years of experience in psychology, and career changers. However, we shared a common goal: to gain a deeper understanding of school psychologists’ work and explore this profession. Beyond our weekly meetings, our core initiative was to create social media posts and short videos based on psychoeducational lectures delivered by Chinese-speaking school psychologists in the US. These materials covered topics like ASD, ADHD, and special education. They were specifically designed to support first-generation Chinese immigrant families in the U.S. who may be unfamiliar with the American education system.
Keywords: Group psychotherapy, Therapeutic factors, Self-esteem, Culture, Support group, Community
View our support group through a therapeutic lens
Although most group members and I initially viewed this group simply as an application support group, we ended up gaining much more through the process. Yalom and Leszcz introduced eleven primary factors that contribute to the effectiveness of group psychotherapy, including instillation of hope, universality, imparting information, altruism, corrective recapitulation of the primary family group, development of socializing techniques, imitative behavior, interpersonal learning, group cohesiveness, catharsis, and existential factors. Later empirical research showed that these eleven factors could be clustered into four broader therapeutic factors: installation of hope, secure emotional expression, awareness of relational impact, and social learning (Joyce et al., 2011). Among all the factors listed above, I found that universality, altruism, installation of hope, secure emotional expression, and group cohesiveness were especially evident in our support group and helped us support one another throughout the application process.
Universality was the first and most powerful therapeutic factor I experienced in our group. Yalom and Leszcz (2020) explained that common aspects between group members would soon be revealed and perceived in the group psychotherapy process, and clients would benefit from them and develop a greater sense of connection with the world. In our group, I strongly experienced universality when I found that other group members were also feeling anxious and uncertain throughout the application process, just like me. When I heard one group member say she was also wondering whether this decision was right and felt hopeless when she saw some news mentioning that cuts in funding might negatively impact universities’ recruiting new PhD students, her voice was trembling, and I saw other group members showing similar facial expressions that conveyed strong empathy for her. Then, more people began sharing their own fears about the difficult situation. It felt as if we were sitting around a campfire in the snow, warming each other in the cold. This was more than empathy. It was a strong, shared sense that we were not alone. Knowing that our anxieties were not a sign of personal weakness, but a shared response, has helped us overcome self-doubt and take positive steps toward application.
Altruism was also an important component among our group members. According to Yalom (2020), being useful to others enhances self-esteem, and in group therapy, members feel valued when they help others. In our group, members volunteered to help one another review the bullet points of their statements of purpose, offered suggestions, and broke into small subgroups to practice interviews together, where we experienced more secure emotional expression. I remember one group member telling me that she felt one of my greatest strengths was my calmness during the mock interviews. I was very worried about the interviews at that time, and in my imagination, I thought I must have seemed awkward and anxious. Her feedback shed light on me, and I gained more confidence in myself. Also, when I was playing the role of interviewer, I noticed that other group members also had strengths that should be affirmed, as well as areas for improvement. When I gave them suggestions, I felt I was helping them move closer to their goals and that I was also grasping something controllable in a process that often felt out of control. This experience was rare during the application process, as we were also competing for the same programs. According to previous research in mainland China (Zhang et al., 2021), competitiveness aimed at winning is negatively associated with altruism, which is common in daily life. The study also found that competition focused on personal growth can be beneficial, as it encourages people to care for others and consider group outcomes instead of focusing solely on themselves. Our group is a living example of this study’s findings. What made altruism possible in our group is that we are trying our best to create an environment that we could all benefit from and have self-development. When helping others through the application process, I’m also seeing myself through a vivid mirror that, in return, helps me gain strength and value.
The conflicts and negative parts within the group
However, I also experienced conflicts and negative aspects within our support group. The first conflict arose from a rupture, and I would like to call it “the side effect of cohesiveness”. Since two experienced and respected professionals led our group, all our members tended to listen closely to their instructions and treat the tasks as “group assignments” rather than proactive work. Both psychologists mentioned that our group members lacked autonomy and were too quiet during meetings. When they shared this thought with me privately instead of addressing the whole group, I felt an urge to stand up for the other members, which I believe came from the group’s strong sense of cohesiveness. Coming from a Chinese cultural background where authority figures are respected and even revered, and from an education system in which students are used to completing tasks assigned by teachers, we share a similar implicit mindset: if we finish all the “assignments” and follow the requirements, we will receive good remarks or “grades” from the authority. When the leaders shared their concerns only with me, it unintentionally positioned me closer to them, creating a moment of rupture in the group process. This also marked the beginning of a subtle subgroup, one consisting of the leaders and me, which shifted the power dynamics and excluded the rest of the group. When the group leaders pointed out the stagnation within the group, I felt strong defensiveness and tried to explain that the other members were already doing their best. Looking back, I found this defensiveness reflected several of Yalom’s therapeutic factors, including cohesiveness, because I had come to identify strongly with the group, and universality, because criticism directed at the group felt like criticism of “all of us,” including myself. I had come to see the group as part of my identity, so I felt attacked and wanted to defend it when hearing negative comments. In my heart, I understand that the leaders are giving the right comments, but I do not want to admit it at that time. This might be “the side effect of cohesiveness”. Group cohesiveness had become a comfort zone for us: we preferred to stay wrapped in the warm blanket of familiarity rather than go out and explore the unknown world. This experience also reflected what Yalom called “resistance,” in which clients maintain their position and refuse to change even when it is harmful to themselves. When we became closely bonded as a subgroup without professionals, this resistance grew stronger and became harder to overcome. This subgroup formed partly because we are of similar age and shared similar reactions to authority. Feeling criticized by the leaders brought us even closer, and we began turning to each other for support rather than to the professionals.
Another conflict I observed in our subgroup was “the dark side of universality and the installation of hope.” It emerged after we had submitted our applications, when some members began to receive interview invitations from universities. According to previous research in group psychotherapy, clients’ hope and positive expectations are associated with better therapeutic outcomes. However, when the first member shared his interview invitation in the group chat, I experienced very complex emotions. I genuinely felt happy for him and hopeful that I might also receive interviews soon. While at the same time, I became increasingly anxious, checking my application portal and email inbox repeatedly. These mixed emotions also reflected the universality of our situation, because his success reminded me that we were all facing the same uncertainty, sharing similar goals and feelings. In a support group where everyone shares similar goals, one person’s success inevitably creates pressure for others. As we approached the end of the application season and most members had received at least one offer, except for one member who had not received any responses, the group atmosphere grew tense. Members became cautious and hesitant when sharing good news, trying to hide their happiness to avoid making her feel worse. I think this might represent the side effect of “universality” and “installation of hope,” as it can also create comparison and anxiety among group members who share similar goals, and this should be noticed when we become group leaders.
Conclusion and reflection
Now, our subgroup has become a peer support group for psychology graduate students. We have 17 members in total, and many have already entered graduate programs, while the remaining members are preparing to apply for the 2026 Fall programs. We plan to support these members through the application process and help one another face the challenges we may encounter in graduate school. Graduate studies can bring significant pressure and feelings of isolation to students, as they may face long study hours, unclear career paths, and the burden of high expectations from themselves and their families (Murguía Burton & Cao, 2022). However, in our new support group, which has already established a strong sense of cohesiveness, altruism, universality, and secure emotional expression, we could help each other feel accompanied and supported.
As for our new support group, we are still thinking about how to make it a safe space for Chinese international students in psychology graduate programs. Our primary goals are to support one another, exchange valuable information, and cope with academic and cultural challenges together. Our group has a monthly virtual meeting for check-ins and discussing topics such as homesickness, research and job resources, and how to balance social life and study. Meanwhile, we use a WeChat group chat (a messaging app widely used among Chinese communities, like WhatsApp) for brief, instant conversations and mutual support, for example, talking about our weekend and holiday plans and sharing coping strategies for winter. Through our monthly virtual meetings and discussions on WeChat, I believe we could create a community that responds to therapeutic factors such as universality, instillation of hope, and secure emotional expression.
Looking back on this experience, I see our community not only as an application support group, but also as a safe place where we could experience Yalom’s therapeutic factors. We experienced universality when sharing our fears and anxieties, felt the power of altruism when helping each other prepare for interviews, cheered others’ achievements while instilling hope in ourselves, and bonded to foster group cohesiveness and secure emotional expression. Although we also faced the dark side of group life, knowing that this group was not perfect helped us focus on personal development rather than rely on the group. In short, the eight-month journey in the graduate program application helped us build a supportive community that strengthened our belief in the power of the group and therapeutic factors.
References
Joyce, A. S., MacNair-Semands, R., Tasca, G. A., & Ogrodniczuk, J. S. (2011). Factor structure and validity of the Therapeutic Factors Inventory–Short Form. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 15(3), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024677
Murguía Burton, Z. F., & Cao, X. E. (2022). Navigating mental health challenges in graduate school. Nature Reviews Materials, 7(6), 421–423. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-022-00444-x
Yalom, I. D., & Leszcz, M. (2020). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy (Sixth edition). Basic Books.
Zhang, M., Andersson B., & Wang, F. (2021). Are competitive people less altruistic and more manipulative? Associations among subtypes of competitiveness, hypothetical altruism, and Machiavellianism. Personality and Individual Differences, 181, 111037. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111037