* They may benefit from the experiences of other group members who have similar problems or who have very different kinds of difficulties. Knowing that they are not troubled minorities of one can be a comfort; knowing that other people have problems in areas where they don't can be reassuring. In general, group therapy can give you insight provided by the thoughts and perceptions of others; it can help you develop social ties if you feel isolated; and it can offer group support if you need emotional bolstering in order to cope with difficult situations, undertake decisions that may frighten you, and face more calmly and confidently the many challenges life can present. But it can also help you deal with more specific problems, such as facing an especially stressful situation--the death of {186} someone very close to you, divorce or separation, serious illness, unemployment, drug addiction, or alcoholism. Or perhaps you have problems relating to others, such as having a history of being fired from job after job despite your efforts to hold them. For that matter, group therapy can even offer information about job opportunities, how to develop occupational skills, how to apply for a job, and how to keep a position you hold. Some psychologists have commented that the popularity and the need for the kind of experience that group therapy offers are due to the decline of community life and to the virtual disappearance of extended families living physically and emotionally close to one another. Group therapy is offered in private practice, in hospitals, and in halfway houses; in psychiatric and counseling centers, in clinics and hospital wards for patients with diabetes, AIDS, epilepsy, arthritis, heart conditions, paralysis, blindness; in prisons and juvenile detention centers; and in schools, for students with behavior problems and truancy. Group therapy is often used for marriage, family, and child-guidance counseling and to help families in which a member is physically or emotionally disabled. Group therapy is used by churches for family guidance and for spiritual counseling. It is used in virtually any area where people share problems: victims of crime and physical abuse, former patients, the aged, children of the aged, those who are discriminated against--the list goes on. So, group therapy cuts across virtually the whole range of human problems. Because it is used in so many areas, it is impossible to define it as a single approach--many distinct approaches actually may be involved.