Dating and Mental Health Workshop

Group Type: Workshop

Goals of the Group:

• To help participants navigate the dating landscape while managing mental illness.
• To provide tools for overcoming barriers, building resilience, and fostering healthy relationships.
• To create a personalized roadmap for dating success with mental health in mind.

Who Is The Group For?

• Individuals who struggle with navigating dating platforms and systems while managing mental illness.
• Those who feel overwhelmed or lost about how to begin the dating process.
• Individuals who have started dating but face recurring challenges.
• Those seeking a supportive space to address the unique challenges of dating with mental illness, such as anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns.

Discussion Topics:

• Understanding the impact of dating on mental health.
• Identifying internal and external barriers to dating progress.
• Reclaiming emotional autonomy.
• Building healthy dating skills.

What Will We Talk About?

• Common mental health struggles encountered in dating (anxiety, self-doubt, overwhelm).
• Techniques for recognizing and managing stress and anxiety in dating.
• Internal barriers (self-sabotaging patterns, fear of rejection, lack of confidence) and external challenges (societal pressure, stigma around mental illness, family expectations).
• Strategies to identify and work through negative thinking patterns and limiting beliefs.
• Past relationships or experiences that have shaped current dating fears and how to transform them into learning opportunities.
• Communication skills, setting boundaries, and self-advocacy in relationships.
• Developing a personalized dating roadmap.

Glimpse of the Session:

• Session 1: Understanding the Impact of Dating on Mental Health

  • Goal: Create awareness of how the process of dating affects mental well-being.
  • Key Points: Introduction of participants, setting group norms, common mental health struggles, emotional toll of dating, and managing stress and anxiety.
  • Exercises: Emotional Check-In: Participants fill out a worksheet rating how dating affects their mental health, identifying specific stress triggers.

• Session 2: Identifying Internal and External Barriers

  • Goal: Increase self-awareness of obstacles that hinder dating progress and how to manage them.
  • Key Points: Discussion on internal barriers, external challenges, and techniques to identify and work through negative thinking patterns and limiting beliefs.

• Session 3: Reclaiming Emotional Autonomy

  • Goal: Empower participants to release past emotional baggage and take control of their dating journey.
  • Key Points: Addressing past relationships or experiences, transforming them into learning opportunities, and strategies to reclaim self-worth and develop healthy boundaries.

• Session 4: Building Healthy Dating Skills

  • Goal: Equip participants with the skills needed for building healthy relationships and managing dating dynamics.
  • Key Points: Communication skills, setting boundaries, self-advocacy in relationships, developing a personalized dating roadmap, review of skills learned, and role-playing scenarios to practice healthy communication in dating.

Please note that the session topics, order, and other details may be subject to change based on the needs and preferences of the group members and facilitators.