A new social support group for adult survivors of child abuse is something Geelong’s Michael Constable is keen to set up. Please Share this information.
Michael’s awareness of the benefits of this sort of group, came from being a participant in them as a survivor of child abuse himself, then with experience in facilitating support groups, assisting in residential workshops for survivors, co-ordinating a national support and information line for survivors and supporters, and having had a 50-year nursing career working mostly with marginalised and vulnerable people.
As a psychiatric nurse and Counsellor himself, he was aware of the limits of talk-based therapy for himself, while recognising its initial usefulness as he experienced and practised it. He sought something more cathartic with which to shift the emotional turmoil, depression-avoidant busyness, dark moods and self-limitation which plagued him.
Michael started to explore non-talk therapies, including Breathwork, art therapy, music therapy, Voice Dialogue, inner child work, non-dominant hand drawing, Reiki, Pranic Healing, affirmation and response writing and Eye Movement and Desensitisation Reprogramming (EMDR). The most powerful, for him, was Breathwork, which he practised with many clients after undergoing approximately thirty sessions himself with a number of practitioners, attending a 6-month course, then a workshop with the originator Leonard Orr.
While Michael found many to be useful, he said alternative therapies are often expensive but not covered by health insurance or Medicare, and requiring money, time and the emotional and cognitive resources to engage with the therapy.
Among the many effects of abuse, which he has experienced like many other survivors, the most debilitating and life-limiting included social isolation, shame, self-blame and self-criticism, lack of self-confidence, trust and relationship issues and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Not surprisingly, all these often lead to addictive and high-risk behaviours, self-harm and medical diagnoses such as anxiety and depression, social phobia and varieties of personality or behavioural disorders.
“There is huge value in people meeting together, as this breaks down feelings of isolation and shame, and shows survivors that their thoughts and feelings are the reactions of normal people to abnormal and damaging experiences, and that they are neither ‘crazy’ nor to blame,” Michael, said. “This can arm people with better strategies for dealing with life, by learning more of other people’s experiences. People who join can expect meaningful conversations, and perhaps surprisingly find humour occurring spontaneously, that’s not inappropriate or superficial,” Michael added.
Importantly the proposed group process is not about the abuse history, but about participants’ current lives and sharing the multiple challenges, wins and wisdoms in each other’s journeys.
Creating the safe space in which to do this is the responsibility of each participant by following some important, but understandable guidelines*:
- Respect. This includes not interrupting when another participant is talking, not criticising another person’s shared thoughts and not talking at such length that there is too little time for others to speak in turn.
- Confidentiality – recounting useful information learned in the group must not be associated with any description of the person who has shared it and of course no names of members revealed outside the group.
- No questioning of other members about their abuse history, their identity, occupation or where they live or work.
- No explicit description of abuse history as this is not the focus or purpose of this support group and may provoke unwanted trauma recall and emotional crisis in other participants.
- No unsolicited advice. If anyone has a specific situation or strategy, which they want to hear others’ experience of dealing with, there will be opportunity to do that later after everyone has had a chance to share.
- To allow everyone to be heard, there will be a round where each can introduce themselves in as much or as little detail as they feel ready to say something about what they have been involved in generally or recently, that has been significant for them. It is completely acceptable not to speak. Anyone who doesn’t speak initially can speak after others have spoken, if they feel more comfortable then. And any not speaking at all, will remain welcome at the following meeting. It can take time to start sharing life like this.
- A second round will focus on what each of us has been feeling. Often mainstream social norms aren’t very tolerant of emotionality especially if it is interpreted as negative. Anger can be triggering for survivors of violence or any of us of course, so consideration of this is necessary. However, many survivors have a lot of angry feelings about the abuse and can have that anger triggered by situations in life, so talking about it in this group can be as important as all the other feelings, and needs to be allowed – just not loud and foul.
* These were put together by psychologists with participant feedback at Liz Mulliner’s pioneering Mayumurri centre in NSW, then refined further with Adults Surviving Child Abuse (ASCA) which grew out of Mayumurri.
Though not “therapy” this process is a form of social contact, which is a basic need of human nature frustrated in many survivors.
Locally, Michael introduced this process to Lifeboat during Covid, while meetings were held via Zoom. You can read our earlier story about Lifeboat here: https://humansingeelong.com/2017/05/26/fr-kevin-dillon-lifeboat-geelong/
For those who would like to join the group, or find out more information, please text Michael on 0403 425 627 and leave a message, name and number for him to get back to you.
You can read Michael’s thoughts about emotions and the effects of childhood abuse and trauma at his blog, www.conversationsaboutlife.org
Photo: Michael Constable and Humans in Geelong’s Founder, Jacqui Bennett.
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