 25 years of activity  Over 60 employees and partners  Certified Psychotherapy School  Humanistic School for Addiction Therapists  Individual, couple and group therapy  Workshops and trainings for professionals  School for Psychological Training and Workshop INTRA Center for Psychotherapy and Psychological Education Warsaw, Poland

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Symbolic Assertiveness Working with trauma in group therapy By Maria Król-Fijewska and Piotr Fijewski, INTRA

Applications: Personal growth workshops Thematic groups, ex. working with trauma Intervention during experiential therapeutic group.

Trauma:  Violation,  Deprivation of causative power/agency  Organismic/actualizing tendency is blocked and person experiences powerlessness, paralysis, helplessness, anxiety, emptiness, a sense of vanishing.

The aim of SA …is to help the client to restore their agency in the situation of trauma.

...being able to experience agency in situation, in which it was not there before (sometimes for decades) or, in other words: …appearance of actualizing tendency, one can feel as having power, congruence, fulfillment, order, harmony, relief and peace and on physical level as a burst of energy in the body, opening the chest and diaphragm, good breathing or straightness in posture.

Often in experiential work with trauma we use procedures like trauma retelling or working with empty chair, where client expresses mainly their feelings towards the perpetrator and sometimes changes chairs to alter their perception of the situation, change emotion and then the whole scheme.

In SA therapist together with the client is looking for a kind of behavior, that could be perceived/felt as their agency. It doesn’t necessarily have to have a form of confrontation. May be related to withdrawal, the situation preceding trauma, expression of needs and feelings (not necessarily to perpetrator) or may deal with reaching for help of other members of the family or other adults.

Like in EFT we try to help client move from secondary emotions and aggressive actions to primary emotions expressed in close contact with his core experiencing. When it is difficult for the client, who is convinced that the energy is in aggression, ex. revenge, we can help him with some focusing, asking to place this revenge in his body and then observing what kind of feelings are there.

How it is done…

Group session can be started with guided fantasy evoking associated topics, example: " Imagine…there is the light in the center of the body, which is a symbol of life, dignity, feelings and needs. Lets take a rout in the world of your past and see where it dims.”

One of the clients describes specific situation and therapist helps their with building a scenario for psychodrama.

Client, optionally with assistance of a terapist and group, prepares his action which will be manifestation of his agency in the situation: what their wants to say, will their stand or sit, will their be close or in some distance.

Client tries it out (like in the assertiveness training) several times improving their action. After every attempt their has a chance to estimate agency, power, energy, satisfaction. A chance to correct their behavior occurs.

We work till we have success (big or small). Never leave the client with a sense of failure!

After work we also ask for a bodily based description of here and now experience and then for a feedback from the group and the therapist.

Supportive techniques: o ”Guardian angel ”behind the back holding hands on clients shoulders. o Client as the guardian of his child. o Looking for agency in situations preceding trauma.

SA refers to assertive procedures, but only in the context of personal experience.

Causative power (agency) appears as:  expression of needs (including expectations and demands)  setting boundaries (refusal, saying “enough”)  assertive expression of feelings, e.g. anger, sadness,hurt  expression of opinion

In SA we can work only with traumas, that were consciously acknowledged.

In individual therapy simplified versions are used.

Thank you! Darek Tkaczyk & Joanna Kaczmarek INTRA, Warsaw, Poland