The $5 Revolution: Why I Created Support Group Plus

I want to tell you why I charge five dollars for something that could easily cost fifty.

Support Group Plus — my weekly facilitated group sessions — costs five dollars per session. Not per month. Per session. Less than a fancy coffee. Less than your Netflix subscription. Less than one-quarter of a typical therapy co-pay.

And I want to explain why.

The Gap I Kept Seeing

In my practice, I noticed a pattern with my therapy clients:

They'd come in for their weekly session. We'd do great work. They'd have breakthroughs, insights, tools. They'd leave feeling supported and empowered.

And then they'd go back into their lives and feel completely alone.

Between sessions, they had nobody who understood. Nobody going through similar things. Nobody to say "me too" or "that happened to me" or "you're not crazy, here's what I did."

I kept thinking: therapy addresses the individual. But healing also happens in community. And most people don't have access to a community that understands their struggles.

The other thing I noticed: not everyone needs individual therapy. Some people need connection. They need to be in a room (even a virtual one) with other humans who get it. They need to hear that their experience is shared. They need to give and receive support.

But traditional support groups are either free (and unstructured, unfacilitated, sometimes unhelpful) or they're expensive group therapy ($50-100 per session). There's nothing in between.

Why $5?

The five-dollar price tag is intentional. Here's my thinking:

Free creates barriers. When something is free, people don't commit. They sign up and don't show. They attend once and drift away. There's no skin in the game. A tiny financial commitment creates accountability — you're more likely to show up when you've invested something, even something small.

$50+ creates access problems. The people who need community most — people in financial stress, going through divorce, between jobs, managing on a single income — are exactly the people who can't afford $50 a week for group therapy. I refuse to build something that excludes the people it's designed for.

$5 is the sweet spot. It's enough to create commitment. It's little enough that nobody has to choose between attending and paying a bill. It honors the value of the group without gatekeeping it.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: I don't do this for the money. $5 per person per session barely covers the platform costs. I do it because I believe community is medicine, and medicine shouldn't bankrupt you.

What Actually Happens in a Session

People ask what Support Group Plus is. Here's a typical session:

• We start with a grounding exercise. Breathe. Arrive.
• I introduce the topic for the week. Could be anxiety management, relationship boundaries, parenting stress, self-compassion, grief, medication questions — it rotates.
• I share some clinical insight on the topic. Education. Context. Normalization.
• Then we open it up. People share. They ask questions. They respond to each other. I facilitate — keep things safe, redirect when needed, offer clinical perspective when it helps.
• We close with a tool, a practice, or an intention. Something to carry into the week.

That's it. 60-90 minutes. No pressure to speak. No requirement to share anything personal. Some people just listen for the first few sessions. That's fine.

What Makes It Different

It's facilitated by a clinician. This isn't a leaderless support group where things can go sideways. I'm there. Holding the space. Maintaining safety. Offering clinical expertise alongside community support.

It's not therapy. I'm clear about this. Support Group Plus is not group therapy. If you need individual treatment, you need individual treatment. But SGP can complement therapy beautifully — or serve as a bridge for people who aren't ready for individual work yet.

It's regular. Same time. Same format. Same community. The consistency builds trust and allows people to go deeper over time.

It's small. I cap sessions to keep them intimate. You're not lost in a crowd. You're in a circle.

There's no commitment. Drop in when you want. Skip when you need to. Come every week or come once a month. No contracts. No judgement.

The Ripple Effect

In the first three months: 47 unique attendees. Some came once. Some haven't missed a single week. The average person who comes back once comes back at least six times. These aren't numbers — they're proof that the model works.

Here's what I've seen happen in Support Group Plus that I never expected:

People who met in the group now text each other between sessions. They've built genuine friendships. They check in on each other. They share resources. They celebrate each other's wins.

One woman told me: "I haven't had friends who understand my depression since college. Now I have three, and I met them all here."

A single dad said: "I thought I was the only person struggling this much. Hearing other people say the same things I feel — I can't explain what that did for me."

This is what community does. It breaks isolation. It normalizes struggle. It proves that you're not alone in the most visceral, immediate way possible.

Who It's For

Anyone. Really.

• People in therapy who want community between sessions
• People considering therapy who want a lower-stakes starting point
• People going through life transitions (divorce, new parenthood, job loss, grief)
• People managing anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges
• People who are just... lonely. Who don't have a space where it's safe to be honest about how they're doing.

If you're human and you sometimes struggle — Support Group Plus is for you.

Join Us

Five dollars. No commitment. No judgment. Just a group of real people being honest about real life, guided by a clinician who's been in the trenches too.

It might be the most valuable $5 you ever spend.