Some people want to recover from something. Rather
than
grouping around that something (chocoholics?, flunking
out
of college? relationship abuse?). Groups could form
around
any one of the coping strategies that have strong
quantitative support from psychology-as-a-quantitative-
science.
We
will imagine that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
utilizing the specific technique of "exposure
desensitization" is quantitatively described (published) as
more effective than Effexor.
Rather than a group of people all talking about chocolate
in a room you would have a group of people getting
together and talking about “exposure desensitization”
and
describing actual things they are doing with that
technique.
There is a kind of index site to live get togethers called
Meetup.com. Meetup.com could have or index these
complimentary therapist-free groups.
To my perception, different people have different
personalities, and tests like the Big Five can profile these
personalities. I think it is possible that the live get-
togethers would assist the extroverts and the people low
on conscientiousness, to stick with their recovery plan
longer. That makes it a kind of "quantitatively
measurable recovery support"
group.
This could also have the benefit of popularizing what,
according to quantitative research, works. I am
imagining two people who want to recover from different
things saying "I hear denial (as a tested practiced
mechanism) works! I'd try the denial group but the
densensitization group is like twice as effective!"