The Group is Going Virtual: Online Men’s Therapy Groups Now Open
And honestly? I think it might reach the men who need it most.
“The loneliness epidemic isn’t about men refusing connection. It’s about men not having anywhere safe to practice it.”
I’ve been sitting with how to write this one for a while now. I’ve written a lot about men’s groups lately. About why they matter, what happens inside them, what changes when men stop performing and start actually showing up. I don’t want to repeat myself.
So let me start here instead, with something more personal.
A couple weeks ago I wrapped the first session of The Circle, my in-person Boulder group. 5 men in a room. One and a half hours. Something I’d been building toward for years. And it was, in every way I hoped it would be, real. Uncomfortably, beautifully real.
On the drive home, I kept thinking about the guys who’d reached out but couldn’t come. The man in Denver who said the Tuesday evening timing just didn’t work. The one in Fort Collins who wanted this exact thing but couldn’t get to Boulder. The one who replied to my last email from Phoenix and just wrote, “I wish we had something like this here.”
That’s what’s behind this next chapter. I’m opening two virtual men’s therapy groups, and they’re built for the man who keeps almost doing this but hasn’t yet been able to make it happen.
Why Virtual Men’s Group Therapy Works (And I Mean That)
I want to be direct about something because I know what some of you are thinking. Virtual? Online group therapy on a screen? That sounds like the opposite of what men need.
I thought the same thing for a long time. I trained as a contemplative therapist, I believe in the body, in presence, in being in a room with someone. And I still believe all of that.
But here’s what the research actually shows: virtual men’s group therapy produces comparable outcomes to in-person work across most measures, including therapeutic alliance, which is the single strongest predictor of change in any modality. The container isn’t the room. The container is the agreements, the consistency, the facilitator, and what the men bring.
More than the science, I’ve seen it. I’ve done deep men’s work over video. I’ve watched someone break open crying in front of six men on a screen in a way I genuinely don’t think he would have managed in person, because the slight distance gave him just enough safety to actually go there. The screen can be a strange gift sometimes.
What I know is this: geography shouldn’t be the reason a man stays isolated. And I’m done letting it be.
What Online Men’s Group Therapy Actually Is
These aren’t support groups. They’re not men gathering to swap stories and feel validated. What I’m offering is group therapy, meaning it’s a clinical container, a held space, where the work is relational and the growth happens in the room between people, not in content I deliver.
Most therapy asks a man to process his life with one other person, his therapist, which is incredibly valuable. But it doesn’t give him what a group gives him: the experience of being seen by multiple people at once, of having his patterns reflected back from different angles, of learning how he actually lands with others in real time and being able to do something about it.
That’s the irreplaceable thing about group work. And it’s what I’ve been watching transform men in circles since long before I became a therapist.
The virtual men’s therapy groups will be small by design, five members maximum. Once a group closes, it stays closed until a seat opens. That intimacy isn’t incidental. It’s the whole point.
Group Details
Format: Virtual via secure telehealth platform (Colorado residents)
Tuesday Group: 2:00 – 3:30 pm MT | 1st & 3rd Tuesdays of the month
Friday Group: 10:00 – 11:30 am MT | 1st & 3rd Fridays of the month
Commitment: Month-to-month subscription
Group Size: Maximum 5 members. Groups close when full and reopen only when a seat becomes available.
Who It’s For: Men who are ready to do real work, not men who are already fine
A Note on the Small Container
Five men is a deliberate number. It’s small enough that no one can hide, and no one gets lost. Every man in the room is seen every single session. There’s no fading into the background because someone else is having a bigger week.
In groups I’ve facilitated and been a part of, the turning point almost always comes in the sixth or seventh session, when the men stop performing for each other and start actually talking. When someone drops the highlight reel and says the thing he hasn’t said out loud to anyone. And the room holds it. That’s the thing I keep coming back to, the experience of being held by other men, that most of us have never had and never knew we were missing.
Five men gives that a chance to happen. Ten can’t.
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If you’ve been reading these emails for a while and something keeps pulling at you, this is probably what it’s been pulling toward. I’m not going to oversell it. It’s not easy. It asks something of you. But most of the men who’ve done this work with me will tell you it’s the most useful thing they’ve ever done for themselves and, quietly, for everyone around them.
The month-to-month structure means you’re not signing away a year of your life. It means you show up for a month, see how it fits, and keep going if it’s working. Most men do keep going.
[Express Interest / Apply Here]
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There’s something I’ve noticed over years in this work. Men don’t usually reach out when things fall apart. They reach out when they’re tired of holding it alone. If that’s where you are, I’m here.
David Redish, LPCC
Witnessing You Psychotherapy