Trauma Informed Community: Group Therapy for Trauma Survivors
Trauma Informed Community: Group Therapy for Trauma Survivors
Trauma informed community is vital for supporting survivors in trauma healing. Group therapy for trauma survivors can be a safe and helpful way to connect to community and continue to work toward trauma healing.
Something I talk about often with clients is the value of community, and how important it is to connect to community, to connect with personal values around community, engage actively and build relationships in community.
However, for many of us, the systems in place have isolated us from each other and broken down natural community development.
As survivors living in a rape-culture misogynistic society, we can be alienated by the victim blaming nature of this culture.
Trauma symptoms include social isolation and withdrawal, often due to heightened fear and anxiety, dissociation, depressed mood, and difficulty engaging in really any activities at all.
During many years of my early recovery I was very isolated. I stayed home, I worked a lot to distract myself and to stay busy and only went to work and went home to crash before going back to work.
I hardly went anywhere including having groceries and food delivered, letting amazon returns just never get returned. Leaving home felt like such a major burden.
I was often really activated and afraid, feeling intense hypervigilance and constantly scanning the scene to identify any possible risk or threat, my senses seemed ultra sensitive like any sound was too loud, light was too bright.
I would have waves of fear thoughts about running into the person who attacked me and spent a lot of time trying to manage those thoughts.
One way of effectively managing these experiences was to simply not go anywhere.
I call this period of time in my life my cave years, my home was my cave, it was a very comforting safe place for me and the security of it helped me heal.
But it was hard to leave.
I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but likely I experienced some degree of agoraphobia, which for me was intense fear of becoming overwhelmed by triggers, flooded with anxiety, and therefore staying home and controlling my environment.
In some ways I still struggle with this, but having practiced a lot of exposure and working on addressing this in therapy I’ve been able to feel much more grounded when going out and connecting with others and my anxiety symptoms are tolerable.
Also as an introvert, I’ve learned a lot about how to mindfully and compassionately honor my social battery and take space to restore energy.
Community Trauma Healing
One of the main things that ultimately helped me with getting out of my cave were around connecting to small accessible community through groups.
In another episode I’ll talk all about the heroic powers of Neville, the therapy floof and how he also helped me emerge from my cave and how ESA *emotional support animals* can help trauma recovery.
At first this started as attending restorative yoga classes (highly recommend for any and all people who need to unlearn toxic productivity and internalize the value of rest).
I would line up usually within the first three people at the door and roll out my mat and lay down ready to experience the healing power of restoration in a community of folx all trying the same thing.
Shortly after I started to feel more safe and comfortable leaving home and started looking for opportunities to connect in with my community around me, the pandemic started.
Sheltering at home felt easy and relieving, it was something I’d been doing for years at that point and now could delay the challenge of stepping out.
And, a very helpful thing that started with the pandemic was a wide increase in accessible VIRTUAL groups (thanks to everyone’s technological adaptability in turning everything into virtual meetings and events during the shutdowns in 2020, many were accessible).
I stayed safe in my little cave but started to connect with people, experience being seen and heard, and having people respond to me.
This exposed me to see that i can be out in the world, and not get flooded.
Ultimately dipping my toe back in the water of building relationships became a powerful healer.
I attended writing workshop groups (and still do, I love these, there’s something particularly vulnerable about sharing creative works with people) witchy moon ceremonies, reiki healing circles, professional consultation teams, virtual happy hours with friends and family.
While this can seems awfully simplistic of just attending fun workshops, it also was a way I was acting in things important to me, my values around spirituality, connection to the earth cycles, creativity, family, where previously my life was only work and survival, it now had so much more to it. And through connecting to values we can find and connect to community.
Does Group Therapy Work?
So, does group therapy work? Group therapy does indeed work very well! Group therapy works based on the idea that humans, as social creatures/animals that we are, access our inherent community building and connecting psychological structures to facilitated healing, change, growth, and insight development. In many ways this is why individual therapy works, we facilitate this kind of working through a one on one relationship that humans are built to respond and shape with.
Group therapy works because we can practice and build skills for connecting with others, resolving conflicts, accepting conflict and differences with others, and begin to feel more masterful in building relationships. We can also experience being heard, seen, validated and respected; which for many survivors of trauma especially complex trauma, can be a very new and powerful healing experience.
In this already powerful context, we can connect with specific topics we’er wanting to learn more about or understand more about ourselves.
What Happens in Group Therapy
What happens in group therapy is primarily determined by the kind of therapy practiced, process groups or skills groups.
What happens in process group therapy is that groups of people come together regularly and talk through the issues at hand and experience themselves and others building insight, changing/shifting in response to this dialogue that occurs.
What happens in skills group therapy, a group comes together to learn a specific skill set and accesses the wisdom and experience of a whole group of people to better understand how to apply the skills, and to build motivation to continue implementing change in their life.
Groups are a great add on to individual therapy, a way to connect with others around specific mental health topics and goals, and add additional work to deepen your personal therapy and accelerate your progress.
Groups are also a great way to access mental healthcare that might otherwise be cost prohibitive as groups often cost less per session than individual therapy and can be time limited (i.e. 8 weeks, 12 weeks, etc) so you can get a chance to focus on a specific topic or skillset.
This is a great way to access some popular evidence based practices like DBT that can often be quite expensive individually.
I’ve experienced powerful healing and change myself, and witnessed this as a therapist in groups I’ve facilitated and highly recommend considering these resources.
How to Find Group Therapy
How to find group therapy takes some networking. Many online networks like Psychology Today or Therapy Den have listings specific to group therapy and how to find group therapy. As well, good word of mouth and asking around the community will help you get in contact with community resources for groups. Many major metropolitan areas have professional associations that also provide network with group therapy, for example GPALA in Los Angeles, CA has a network of many groups operating around the area. To find group therapy you can also look to local state psychological associations, and connect with linked community organizations for group supports their community could benefit from.
This year I’m starting two new groups for folx wanting to build skills together in a safe and validating community.
I’m opening a DBT skills therapy group for LGBT and a trauma recovery skills therapy group for survivors of trauma.
Both are 12 weeks of specific skill building in small groups where folx can connect to like minded people and learn how to apply some powerful skills right now in their life.
LGBT Group Therapy
I am offering LGBT group therapy with a virtual DBT skills therapy group for those who self identify with the LGBTQ+ and/or genderdiverse community. In 12 weeks, this skills focused group will help people learn and practice DBT skills for emotion regulation including building relationship skills with boundaries, calming emotional triggers, and grounding in a secure sense of self to build a life worth living. Connect to our beautiful community to build skills to manage painful emotions and connect to personal values through LGBT group therapy.
People will walk away from this group already practicing skills daily in their life and connecting to meaningful relationships.
Trauma Skills
Trauma skills helps us stay grounded and regulated when healing and processing trauma. Trauma skills can also help us connect to relationships and important activities again. In 12 weeks, this trauma skills therapy group will help you learn and practice skills for trauma recovery including building knowledge about how trauma impacts our brain, calming trauma triggers, and setting achievable goals to build a life worth living. People will walk away from this group already taking steps towards the life they want to live, armed with useful and practical skills to manage triggers.
This group brings together key skills from evidence-based practices like EMDR, DBT, CPT, and incorporates sociocultural perspectives and feminist therapy to understand trauma in the context of larger systems we live in.
You can get more information and sign up to enroll in these groups at my website.
Enrollment is open now, there are limited spaces that can go very fast. Groups start in April, and if you don’t make it to these, I’ll be offering an additional cohort in the fall.
Benefits of Group Therapy
There are many benefits of group therapy. Group therapy, workshops, community circles are lovely ways to get started and get our foot in the door of connecting with community.
Group therapy can really help us take a small step into the light outside our own caves in a way that feels manageable and safe.
Group therapy help us practice some social skills in safe validating environments and learn more about ourselves and where in our world we want to connect.
In a future blog I will talk more about building community and relationships and the power community has in trauma recovery and changing our world.
Want to learn more about YOUR specific trauma recovery style? Take the QUIZ and get unique skills specific to you!
If you want to start therapy today, sign up to work with me here. I offer trauma therapy with multiple approaches to best meet the needs of trauma survivors. You can sign up for my mailing list to get tips for trauma recovery right to your mailbox. You can also listen to my podcast, Initiated Survivor, anywhere you hear podcasts. Follow me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Youtube to get awesome survivor content.
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