If you are looking for group therapy in Mumbai for loneliness, belonging, and relationships, you may be carrying a pain that is hard to explain to other people. You may be around others and still feel outside. You may join conversations but not feel included. You may appear socially functional, yet remain unsure where you stand, how much you matter, or whether you truly belong anywhere.
At Healing Studio, Tejas Shah offers group therapy for adults struggling with loneliness, social discomfort, friendship insecurity, shallow connection, and repeating relational patterns. This is not a motivational group or a place for forced sharing. It is a serious therapeutic space where difficulties around closeness, distance, place, and belonging can be understood more deeply, and worked through with care.
Tejas Shah
Clinical Psychologist | Philosophical Counsellor | Group Analyst
In-person: Borivali, Mumbai
Online: Initial consultation on Zoom where appropriate
Call / WhatsApp: +91 7977501648
Email: [email protected]
In clinical work, this kind of difficulty often appears not as one dramatic event, but as a repeating emotional pattern that slowly begins shaping relationships, self-esteem, and everyday decisions. A person may say they feel “left out,” “awkward,” or “not close to anyone,” but underneath there is often a deeper question: Why do I keep ending up outside, even when I want connection?
“In my work, loneliness is often not only about being alone. It is also about not feeling held, placed, or real enough with others.” — Tejas Shah
If being around people still does not feel like belonging
Loneliness does not always look like isolation. Sometimes it looks like going to work, replying on WhatsApp, attending family events, meeting people, and still coming home with the same flat internal feeling: I was there, but I was not really with anyone.
For some people, the pain is strongest in groups. For others, it is stronger in friendships or informal social circles. Some feel peripheral in families. Some manage one-to-one relationships relatively well, but feel hesitant, frozen, or oddly displaced in larger spaces. Others have company, but almost no sense of emotional contact.
This may be especially painful in urban life. In Mumbai, people often live among crowds, obligations, work networks, extended family structures, and constant movement. Yet the inner experience may still be one of limited emotional space, chronic comparison, uncertainty, and isolation within density.
Who this group therapy may help
This work may be useful for adults who:
- often feel left out, peripheral, or forgettable
- struggle to join groups, teams, gatherings, or already-formed circles
- feel lonely even when they have people around them
- do not know where they stand in friendships or social connections
- keep hanging back even when they want closeness
- feel emotionally outside in family, work, or social settings
- are tired of repeating the same relational position with different people
Group therapy may also help people who are thoughtful, capable, and outwardly composed, but inwardly burdened by shame, hesitation, self-consciousness, guardedness, or fear of mattering less.
How belonging difficulty can take different forms
Always near the group, never fully inside
Some people move through life with a quiet but persistent sense of being an outsider. Nobody may be openly excluding them, and yet they rarely feel fully included. They may be present in friendships, family life, work settings, or social spaces, but still experience themselves as slightly peripheral, slightly less wanted, or easily replaceable. Over time, the issue is not only that they feel left out. It is that they no longer trust inclusion, even when it is offered. They may start to assume that others are more central, more wanted, or more securely placed than they are.
Wanting to join, but hanging back at the edge
For others, one-to-one contact feels easier than group life. They may manage depth better in a direct conversation, but feel awkward the moment they enter a room, a gathering, a team, or an already-formed circle. The difficulty may begin at the point of entry itself. They want to join, but hang back. They watch, assess, hesitate, and arrive late internally even when they are physically present. They may keep staying at the edge of groups and then judge themselves for it, without understanding why entering shared social space feels so psychologically difficult.
Surrounded, but still emotionally alone
Some people are not short of company. They have conversations, routines, social contact, and maybe even regular plans. Yet none of it feels deeply nourishing. They may settle for thin belonging simply to avoid being alone, but still feel emotionally untouched. Conversation may remain polite, functional, or repetitive. There may be contact without felt connection. This kind of loneliness is often hard to explain because it survives company. From the outside, the person does not look alone. From the inside, they may feel profoundly unheld.
Always unsure of where you stand
Another form of this difficulty appears as chronic relational uncertainty. A person may care deeply about friends, but keep feeling forgotten, secondary, or less important than others. Friendships may look normal from the outside, yet feel fragile from within. Small delays, missed invitations, or slight shifts in tone may trigger disproportionate doubt. The person may crave closeness but remain afraid that they matter less, that they are easier to drop, or that they are more invested than the other person. In adult life, this can create a persistent background of friendship anxiety, comparison, and emotional scanning.
Why group therapy can be especially useful for this kind of pain
When the difficulty lives mainly in relation to other people, group therapy can sometimes help in a way that individual reflection alone cannot. It offers a live interpersonal space in which patterns of closeness, distance, hesitation, comparison, exclusion, silence, longing, and self-protection can begin to appear in real time.
This is not only a social confidence problem. Psychologically, it may also involve shame, attachment insecurity, fear of dependence, defensive withdrawal, sensitivity to rejection, or long-standing relational learning. A person may protect themselves by becoming watchful, over-adapted, invisible, pleasing, emotionally distant, ironic, or prematurely self-reliant. Those strategies may once have helped. Later, they can leave the person stranded.
Group therapy may help because it creates a space where these patterns do not have to remain hidden or be understood only in theory. They can gradually become speakable, thinkable, and emotionally understandable.
“What hurts between people often needs to be understood between people.” — Tejas Shah
My approach to group therapy in Mumbai for loneliness, belonging, and relationships
My approach is depth-oriented, relational, and group-analytic in spirit. This means I am interested not only in what a person feels internally, but also in how that experience is shaped in relation to others, and how certain positions become familiar over time. In a therapy group, the aim is not performance, advice-giving, or instant openness. The aim is to make more sense of what happens emotionally between people.
In practice, this may involve speaking, listening, noticing what gets stirred in the room, and reflecting on repeating experiences such as holding back, feeling overlooked, becoming overcareful, expecting exclusion, fearing closeness, or struggling to take up space. The work is gradual. People are not pressured to reveal everything immediately.
I also work integratively where helpful. My clinical orientation is informed by psychodynamic psychotherapy, group analytic thinking, cognitive and relational perspectives, and wider attention to emotional patterns, family learning, and lived context. Where relevant, I remain attentive to how caste, class, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, migration, and family position may affect a person’s sense of belonging, visibility, and safety with others.
In my work as an RCI-Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Group Analyst, I often meet people who are not simply “bad at relationships” or “socially weak.” Many are thoughtful, observant, and highly functional. What they struggle with is a more painful internal expectation: that they will be peripheral, less wanted, too much, not enough, or difficult to place. Group therapy can be useful because these expectations often emerge in the room itself, where they can be understood carefully rather than acted out in silence.
Why work with Tejas Shah
Tejas Shah offers clinically serious, reflective, and psychologically informed work for people struggling with loneliness, belonging, and repeating relational patterns.
Here are some of the reasons this may matter:
RCI-Licensed Clinical Psychologist:
This brings a grounded clinical understanding of emotional distress, relational dynamics, and suitability of treatment. It matters when loneliness and belonging difficulties are connected to deeper patterns rather than surface social discomfort alone.
Qualified Group Analyst, Institute of Group Analysis, London:
This is directly relevant to group therapy. It supports work that can think carefully about what happens in groups, between people, and within the individual in relation to the group.
Over 16+ years of clinical experience and 16,000+ therapeutic hours:
Long experience matters when the problem is subtle, repetitive, and hard to name. Many people with belonging difficulties do not present dramatically. They present with nuanced emotional positions that require depth and patience.
Clinical practice at Healing Studio since 2010:
This reflects sustained therapeutic work rather than a trend-based or superficial approach. It also means an established Mumbai practice with both in-person and appropriate online access.
Couples and Family Therapy training at TISS and NIMHANS:
Belonging problems rarely begin only in the present. Family atmosphere, sibling position, emotional roles, and early patterns of inclusion and exclusion often shape how people later experience groups and friendships.
M.Phil. in Clinical Psychology, MSc Psychology, and MA Philosophy:
This combination supports both clinical depth and thoughtful reflection. It suits work with people who want more than symptom management and need help making deeper sense of how they live with others.
What to expect from group therapy for loneliness, belonging
The first step is usually an initial consultation. This is a space to understand what brings you, how these patterns have been affecting your life, and whether group therapy may be a good fit. Not everyone struggling with loneliness or belonging difficulty should automatically begin in a group. Sometimes individual therapy first, or alongside group work, may be more helpful.
If group therapy seems suitable, we may discuss the kind of group currently available, what participation involves, how confidentiality is handled, and what concerns you already have about entering a group. These concerns are welcome. In fact, they are often clinically important.
You do not need to be confident, expressive, or socially at ease to begin. Many people come to group therapy precisely because speaking, joining, trusting, or taking up space feels difficult. There is no requirement to become instantly open. The work develops over time.
Practical details
In-person Location: Providing Group therapy for loneliness belonging and relationships at our Borivali clinic.
Nearby areas: Serving clients across Borivali East, Borivali West, Kandivali, Dahisar, Mira Road, Goregaon and the Western Suburbs in Mumbai.
Format: In-person and online group therapy
For: Adults dealing with loneliness, belonging difficulty, friendship insecurity, group discomfort, and relational uncertainty
Call / WhatsApp: +91 7977501648
Email: [email protected]
Frequently asked questions
1. How do I know if group therapy is right for me?
Group therapy may be worth considering if your distress shows up repeatedly with other people, especially around belonging, place, closeness, exclusion, or uncertainty in relationships. The initial consultation can help determine whether group therapy, individual therapy, or a combination may be more suitable.
2. Do I need to be socially confident to join a therapy group?
No. Many people seek group therapy because groups feel hard. Hesitation, awkwardness, fear of joining, and uncertainty about how you come across are often part of what the work helps explore.
3. Will I be forced to speak in front of everyone immediately?
No. Group therapy is not built around forced disclosure. People usually begin at different speeds. Speaking is important, but so is listening, noticing, and gradually understanding how you experience yourself with others.
4. Is this only for people who feel lonely?
No. It may also be useful for people who feel left out, chronically peripheral, unsure where they stand in friendships, unable to settle in groups, or emotionally disconnected even when they have company.
5. Is group therapy confidential?
Confidentiality is taken seriously within professional and legal limits. The group process also involves clear expectations around privacy and respect for other members. These boundaries are discussed as part of the therapeutic work.
6. Can I do individual therapy instead, or before group therapy?
Yes. Depending on your situation, it may make sense to begin with individual therapy, continue individual therapy alongside group work, or move toward group therapy later. Suitability depends on the person, the current difficulty, and what kind of help is most useful.
7. Do you offer online group therapy, or only in Mumbai?
Yes. In-person group therapy is available in Mumbai. Online initial consultations are also available where appropriate. Ongoing format depends on suitability, current group structure, and clinical fit.
Reading about a problem can help you recognize it more clearly, but it cannot replace therapy, diagnosis, or an individualized clinical assessment.
Book an initial consultation
If you are looking for group therapy in Mumbai for loneliness, belonging, and relationships, you do not need to arrive with complete clarity. Uncertainty about starting, about groups, or about whether you belong in therapy is completely understandable.
An initial consultation can help you think through what is happening, whether group therapy may suit your situation, and what next step is most appropriate.
Call / WhatsApp: +91 7977501648
Email: [email protected]
Tejas Shah is a Clinical Psychologist and Group Analyst at Healing Studio. He works with adults who struggle with loneliness, belonging, friendship insecurity, social discomfort, and repeating interpersonal patterns. His approach is reflective, depth-oriented, and clinically grounded. Depending on the person, the work may involve individual therapy, group therapy, or a thoughtful combination of both. The aim is not only symptom relief, but a deeper and more stable sense of place with oneself and with others.
Tejas Shah’s Healing Studio >> Therapy Clinic in Borivali >> Group Therapy