There’s a genuine market failure here. Group therapy is cheaper, well evidenced, and for several problems better than individual work — and it’s close to invisible.
The reason is structural. A group needs six to ten people who want the same thing at the same hour, so a leader can’t advertise until they nearly have one, and once they have one it’s full. So groups fill from existing clients and colleague referrals, and never get listed anywhere.
Where they actually are
Ask every clinician you speak to. The highest-yield move by a wide margin, including clinicians who can’t see you. “Do you run a group, or know of one?” is a question most therapists can answer specifically, and a colleague referral is how most people get in.
Training institutes and university clinics. Almost all run groups. They’re supervised, low-fee, and essentially unadvertised.
Group practices. A practice with eight clinicians usually runs several groups internally and has someone whose job is routing enquiries.
The American Group Psychotherapy Association. AGPA maintains a directory of group therapists, and its Certified Group Psychotherapist (CGP) credential is the specific marker of training in this format. The most reliable single list there is.
Condition-specific organisations. Grief, cancer, perinatal, caregiver, ADHD and addiction organisations frequently run or list groups, and those are much easier to find than general therapy groups.
Community mental health. Public systems deliver most of their psychotherapy as groups. Access is via an intake line rather than a listing.
What to ask when you find one
Is it a process group, a skills group, or a support group? Who leads it and what is their group training? How many members, and roughly who is in it? Open or closed? What’s the commitment? And what happens if it doesn’t fit — can you leave without a fuss?
The timing problem
Groups run on a different clock from individual therapy. A closed group starts on a date and does not take anyone after week two. An open group takes people when someone leaves, which is unpredictable.
Practically: ask to be told when the next one forms, and check back. People frequently give up after one “we’re full” when the next intake was six weeks away.
Widen the map
This is the change that matters most. Therapy is regulated by the state you’re in, not the state the leader is in — so every group licensed where you live is reachable by video.
For a specific group — a particular condition, a particular population, a particular language — that’s the difference between one option and a real choice. It’s also why so many of the good specialist groups are online: they can afford to be specific.