Online group work is a different job, not a larger version of the one you already do. The clinical differences are real — you lose most of the room's nonverbal traffic, silences behave differently, and members can leave without anyone seeing them go — and the tooling differences are just as real. A platform built for two people is not a platform for eight.

The plain version first, because it decides the rest: Rivet's video is one-to-one only. It connects one practitioner and one client — a single connection between two people — so a third participant in a third place isn't something it does. If you run groups, you need a separate tool for them.

What changes clinically?

You lose the room's side channels. In a circle, members read each other continuously — a shift in posture when someone speaks, two people exchanging a look. Online, everyone is a rectangle facing forward, and most of that traffic is gone. Group process that depended on it has to be made explicit instead.

Silence is harder to hold. A pause in a room has texture. A pause on video reads as a technical failure, and someone fills it. Facilitators find they have to name silences out loud that they would simply have allowed.

Turn-taking has to be managed. Only one person can speak at a time on a video call without it becoming noise. That suppresses the interruptions, overlaps and simultaneous reactions that group work often runs on.

Exits are invisible. A member who leaves a room walks past everyone. A member who closes a browser tab is simply not there, and nobody knows whether they left, dropped, or were never really present.

Confidentiality is now distributed. Every member is in their own space, which you cannot see, possibly with someone else in the room, possibly recording. In a circle you control the container. Online you can only ask.

What does a group platform need that a one-to-one one doesn't?

Several things, and they are structural rather than cosmetic.

• Reliable multi-party video at whatever size your group runs, on the devices your members actually have.

• A gallery layout that shows everyone at a usable size, because a group where members can't see each other isn't a group.

• Facilitator controls — muting, removing someone, admitting late arrivals without interrupting.

• A waiting space that holds several people and doesn't drop them into the session automatically.

• Breakout capability, if you use pairs or small-group exercises.

• Co-facilitator support, which most group work assumes.

A tool that does one-to-one video beautifully may have none of these, and adding them is not a small change — the whole shape of the connection is different when there are eight people rather than two.

Does Rivet do group sessions?

No. Rivet's video connects one practitioner and one client. A third participant in a third place isn't supported.

Couples and family work where everyone is in front of the same camera works, because that is still one connection. Three people in three places is not.

If you run groups, you will need a separate tool for them, and that is worth knowing before rather than after.

What should I do if I run both?

Most group facilitators also run one-to-one work, and running two tools is the normal outcome rather than a failure.

Two practical notes. Keep the one-to-one door and the group door clearly separate, so a client never turns up to the wrong one — different links, different reminders, different language in your emails. And be clear with members which of their communications go where, because the boundary that is obvious to you is not obvious to someone holding two links.

What about confidentiality between members?

The part that needs the most explicit work online, because you have lost every physical cue that used to carry it.

Cover it in the group agreement, in words, at the start:

• Who else can be in the room. Not "please be somewhere private" — a specific commitment that nobody else is present or within earshot, restated each session if the group is new.

• Headphones, so half the group's voices aren't coming out of a speaker in a shared apartment.

• No recording, no screenshots, said plainly. Any member can capture the session, and the only control available is an agreement people believe in.

• What happens if someone drops. Whether the group waits, whether you call them, whether they rejoin mid-process.

None of this is enforceable. All of it is worth saying, because groups honour agreements they were actually asked to make.

Is a group even the right format online?

Sometimes not, and it's worth asking before building one.

Formats that translate well: psychoeducational groups, skills groups with structure and materials, and anything where the facilitator is leading rather than following the group's own process. Structure survives the medium.

Formats that struggle: process groups depending on spontaneous member-to-member interaction, groups with members who dissociate or who need physical co-regulation, and anything where the container is doing most of the work.

That is not an argument against online groups. It is an argument for choosing the format deliberately rather than moving an existing group online and expecting it to behave the same way.

The short version

Group work online needs group tooling, and one-to-one tooling won't stretch to it — including Rivet's, which does not do groups at all. If you run both, expect two tools and keep the doors clearly separate. And spend the effort you save on the group agreement, because online it is the only container you have.

About Rivet

Rivet is a Canadian practice line built for therapists — a separate number for calls, texts and voicemail, with video sessions and clinical tools in the same place. Your data stays in Canada, and transcription runs on Rivet's own hardware rather than a third-party AI service.

One plan, $65 CAD a month, everything included. Fourteen-day trial, no card.

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