20-Week Group Intensive Program Orientation Statement

            Our 20-week Program is a structured, time-limited intensive group program offered at our Berkeley office. It is conducted in a caring, non-shaming, and nurturing manner, which creates the necessary environment for deep healing to occur. The program consists of an individual assessment session followed by 20 group sessions, each 2½ hours in length, blending together education and group therapy.

            The goals of the program are to uncover and resolve the core issues underlying relationship, self-esteem, communication, career, and intimacy difficulties. The Program focuses on the root causes of dissatisfying life and relationship patterns and teaches specific behavioral and emotional tools that allow you to create the life you want.

            The 20-week Group Program was originally developed by the John Bradshaw Center, and all of our licensed therapists have been trained by the John Bradshaw Center to offer this program. The Center for Creative Growth has been pleased to provide this powerful group intensive program in the Bay area for the last sixteen years. Our graduates tell us that their lives have been transformed as a result of participating in it. As one graduate expressed it nearly three years after participating in the Program: "I [am writing] to let you know just how liberating and life-changing the program was for me."

            Our group combines experientially-oriented education, specially designed exercises, and interactive, structured group therapy creating deep-rooted change for you. The power of doing this work on a weekly basis, in the company of the same supportive companions, allows you to have the time to integrate the deep processes experienced in each group session, practice the new life skills that are taught, and be ready to absorb the next layer of healing.

To learn more about our Program’s approach, we often recommend reading John Bradshaw’s Healing the Shame That Binds You. John Bradshaw, in his ground-breaking work, describes how early childhood experiences cause each of us to lose touch with our real self. In order to feel some form of acceptance and love, we develop an adapted, codependent self. Bradshaw defines this "codependency" as a "disease of the lost self." He describes this loss of self as the legacy of growing up in a dysfunctional or addictive family and being subjected to emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. As a result, the codependent person relies on approval from others and on compulsive behaviors in an attempt to find safety, self-worth, and a sense of identity. Codependent traits include:

Recovery is possible. Through non-shaming therapy and group support, the codependent person has the opportunity to transform low self-esteem, fear of abandonment, and anxiety into recovery of one's true self, authenticity, and serenity.

To assist people to have such a non-shaming and supportive environment, the John Bradshaw Center designed the 20-week Group Intensive Program. This program is designed to help you to:

· Create relationships where truth can be spoken, feelings can be expressed, and trust can exist

· Free yourself from painful relationships with parents, partners, and family members

This Group Program is designed for people who wish to create authentic, nurturing, and enduring relationships in life. Our approach is to identify and heal the wounds of our past and to learn to build healthy relationships in the present. At the heart of the treatment process are shame reduction exercises, as well as original pain and inner child work. Additional methods include assertiveness training, strengthening of boundary-setting skills, self-image work, and guided visualization combined with facilitated group interactions.

The 20-week Group Intensive operates on the assumption that what prevents your experience of healthy and nurturing relating are early wounds -- wounds due to shaming, criticism, abuse, neglect, alcoholism, or other forms of inappropriate and dysfunctional parenting. More accurately, it is the protective shields you created against this abuse which now prevent you from having the kinds of relationships you desire. It is important to recognize, however, that these protective shields have served the vital purpose of allowing you to survive.

This early learning -- and historic repeating -- of patterns of relating and acting in survival modes resulted in the suppression of your natural spontaneity, sense of safety with others, and ability to experience the full range of feelings. This Program facilitates your understanding of how you got to be the way you are and provides you with the tools and opportunities to transform yourself and your experience of life.

To take a look at what people are saying about their participation in the 20-Week Group Intensive Program and what they got out of it, please click here.

Our 20-Week Group Intensive Program has a maximum of 11 participants. The total cost for the Program is $1,600.00 (that's $80.00 per session). You can pay the full cost at the beginning, or pay a deposit of $320 and then four more monthly installments of $320.00 during the Program.

If you have health insurance, your plan might cover part of the cost. Some insurance plans cover group therapy like this. The important question to ask your insurance company is if you have the option to go "out of network" for health care services, versus having to only use someone on their panel of providers. Your insurance coverage may be helpful if you have the option to go out of network, since our Center is not on any of the provider panels. Also ask your insurance company if your plan covers "group psychotherapy" by a California-licensed therapist.

Offered by

Therapists Trained by the John Bradshaw Center

© Center for Creative Growth 2008