Could group therapy be the answer to cutting down our long waiting lists for mental health?
According to a new report, group therapy sessions could help reduce waiting lists for young people by increasing the number of patients each therapist could see, and making sessions more cost-effective.
The report found many mental health professionals wanted to run group therapy sessions, but lacked the funding or administration needed to set them up.
With some young people stuck on long waiting lists, any way to free up practitioners was welcomed by those in working in mental health.
Psychologist Lisa Gibson specialised in relationship therapy and ran her own practice called Healthy Love.
At the moment, she only ran few one-off group workshops, but hoped that starting up regular ones could help cut through wait times at her practice.
"I think It's one of the hardest parts of my job, is having to send decline emails to people that have already been on waiting lists and are really struggling to get people to even reply to their emails. So group therapy I think is a great way to see more people."
Gibson was in the process of setting up a workshop for young people struggling with mental health, but said getting referrals for it had been tricky.
"I think support from GPs, support from schools, support from community groups. Instead of just flooding our inbox with 1 on 1 referrals... having these other avenues."
When people interacted with each other in group therapy it could help them realise that their mental health struggles weren't as unique as they thought, she said
"People really want to find others in a similar boat. That sense of 'oh my gosh you get it - I'm not the only one.'"
Charity I Am Hope co-authored a study with private psychology practice Mindmatters Clinic - which looked at how youth group therapy programmes across the country were run and what could be improved.
1253 therapists were invited to participate and 134 responded - that was then whittled down to 96 active therapy groups across the country who were surveyed.
Hundreds of respondents weren't counted in the final study because they weren't running a group - but wanted to start one.
Mindmatters CEO, Louise Cowpertwait, said there was a gap between the practitioners who wanted to provide help - and people who needed it.
"We don't have the bridge between them. We don't have the financial solution and we don't have the process or structural solution."
With 1 in 5 young people experiencing mental distress, Cowpertwait said it needed to be made as easy as possible for them to get help.
"This is where, for example, what I Am Hope has done with Gumboot Friday - it's actually made it easy for a young person to go on their website and find an individual therapist provider."
"We need something similar for groups where young people can find it easy to find the groups they want and sign up for the group."
However, the report found that group programmes didn't always follow clinical best practice guidelines and usually used an unstructured, generalist approach rather than targeting specific problems.
I Am Hope research and development manager, Sebastian White said that came down to there being a huge variety of the types of mental health practitioners in New Zealand.
"It ranges from things like CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) that are really prescriptive, to things that are simply not. As an organisation, we're not commenting on which is better or which is worse but it was certainly an interesting observation."
There was clearly a shortage of practitioners and a surplus of people needing support, White said, and any way to make treatment more efficient should be looked at.
