Does it really work?
Mental health clinicians are reporting a rise in therapy sessions for sets of friends. Here, one writer joins them, with her best friend in tow...
As I make my third attempt at the voice note – versions one and two falling short of the breeziness I’m shooting for – Irealise there is no breezy way to invite someone to friendship therapy. ‘Obviously we don’t need it,’ I tell Emma*, a friend who’s well acquainted with both my morning missives and my bullshit. Still, I stare at my phone without blinking as WhatsApp tells me she’s typing. Perhaps she’s humouring me. Or maybe she’s a really good friend. But as she drops a thumbs up into our chat, the relief is overwhelming.
If my invitation sounds niche, it may not be for long. In a survey by the mental health company Thriveworks, 17% of clinicians said they’d treated pairs or groups of friends together. The psychotherapist and author Charlotte Fox Weber††is one of them. ‘We know friendship is good for our health, but we’re less equipped to deal with the intricate struggles of friendships than we are with romantic relationships,’ she tells me. This is where therapy hopes to help. Providing friends with the same time, resources and energy afforded to couples can give them tools to futureproof their relationship.
I found Nicholas Rose, a psychotherapist who offers friendship therapy from his west London practice, after a Google search delivered me to a blog post he published on the topic; one line hit harder than most: ‘Friendship is very connected to our stages of life.’ Don’t I know it. Aged 35, and one of the only women in my friendship group who isn’t pregnant or parenting young children, my friendships are undergoing their biggest stress test yet – areality borne out in research. A study published in February – conducted by analysing posts on the parenting site Mumsnet – found parental status to have a significant impact on friendship, with issues ranging from grief over differing life stages to the pain of much-wanted children never arriving.
That Emma is 38 weeks
