Geraldine Walsh and Gerard McNevin from The Shamanic and Psychotherapeutic Academy will be running “Survivor of Sexual Abuse – Self Care Group” starting this coming October 17th. This course is 8 weeks in length, with session taking place Monday nights from 7-9 pm at The Dublin Wellbeing Centre, 24 Frederick Street South, Dublin 2, D02 XP30. To learn a little bit more about this course, please continue reading below.
About the Course
Are you a Survivor of sexual abuse? Do you struggle with shame, addiction, relationships, and confidence issues? Have you tried one-to-one approaches to healing and are still feeling stuck? If so, you might like to come and sit within a warm, non–judgemental environment with people who have experienced what you have. If you find yourself at this crossroads, perhaps the time has come to embark on a new healing journey and arrive at the place you’ve always yearned for.
This is a psycho-educational and supportive therapy group for survivors of sexual abuse. This eight week course will help you break out of secrecy, shame, and unhealthy patterns of coping bringing you to a place of compassion, resilience, and healing.
Come along to our sexual abuse workshops where you will receive support, guidance, and strategies in a compassionate space. From here, you will learn to befriend and overcome the pain, challenges, low self-esteem, shame, trauma, and negative thinking which you have courageously lived with up until now.
Listed below is an overview of our 8 week psycho-education support group programme that will assist you on your journey from sexual abuse towards wholeness.
WEEK 1 (Formation, Safety & Sharing)
WEEK 2 (Tools, Resources & Supports)
WEEK 3 (Male & Female Survivors & Wounds)
WEEK 4 (Interpersonal Difficulties & Cutting Negative Ties)
WEEK 5 (Reclaiming the Self through Soul Retrieval)
WEEK 6 (Psycho-educational Strategies)
WEEK 7 (Self Care)
WEEK 8 (Integration & Closing)
Covering topics such as:
-Sexual abuse and the impact for male and female survivors
-Sexual abuse for survivors on a physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual level
-Attachment Styles – Secure, Insecure, Insecure Ambivalent, Disorganized
Rigid, Loose, and Healthy Boundaries and how to set healthy ones
-Triggers where abuse is reactivated – creating a safe space and calming the body’s response
-Exercises and strategies to overcome shame, anger, loss, pain, and build trust
-Journeying to a safe space using mindfulness and embodied creative visualization
-Self-care strategies for flashbacks, numbness, dissociation, and hyper-vigilance
-Sexuality, intimacy, and relationships
-Compulsions
-Recognizing old maladaptive coping strategies (addiction, alcohol abuse, co-dependency, gambling, compulsions, eating disorders, etc.)
-Creating new healthier ways for living (journaling, exercise, diet, living in the moment, mindful living, challenging irrational thoughts, Choice Theory, STOPP, Helicopter View, Worry Time)
-Grieving our past – letting go and reclaiming your future
-Moving on and moving forward in life
*This course is run over an eight week period. Groups take place once per week (from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm) and cost €60 per session. Handouts and support materials are given to participants each week*
TO BOOK YOUR SPOT, PLEASE CLICK HERE OR EMAIL US AT TSAPACADEMY@GMAIL.COM
Content of the Course
This course will be facilitated by male and female therapist. These group sessions will include:
-Setting rules, boundaries, and creating a safe space for healing based on respect, acknowledgement, support, and compassion for yourself and fellow participants.
-Sharing in a safe manner with the opportunity to talk about and receive support from the facilitators and group members.
-Meditations and visualizations to assist in releasing hurt, loss, grief, anger and to set healthy boundaries and promote self care.
-Interactive exercises and interventions based on specific topics aimed at dealing with shame, guilt, anxiety, anger, worry, PTSD, boundary setting, and interpersonal relationships to assist with one’s journey towards healing.
-Cleanses for the removal of suppressed energy.
-Grounding exercises and closing of the session.
Each session will include psycho-educational strategies and interventions to overcome triggers, ongoing hurdles, inter-relational problems, and other emotional issues and to enhance and strengthen your boundaries.
Participants wishing to engage in this psycho-educational group should be engaged or willing to engage with individual therapy as the content can bring up unresolved issues from the past that you may need support with. Although clients’ stories differ the themes and patterns of abuse are often quite similar.
This course offers psycho-educational interventions, strategies, exercises, and games to assist you to settle into the group, build confidence, and develop skills for self care and healing. This as well as the support from one another can help the individual and the group to break through the confines of secrecy, shame, and unhealthy patterns for coping and living life. Participants can grow to a place where they experience compassion, resilience, and healing as they honour their own to experience and live life more fully on their terms.