This year, in collaboration with Fiona Gregory, we are launching an exciting series of person-centred events related to working with trauma (Scroll down to read more about upcoming events in this conference series) ⬇️
3.1 million people in England and Wales have been subject to Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), that is 7.5% of adults aged 18 to 74. The figure for women is higher: 1 in 6 women reported unwanted sexual contact prior to the age of 16 (The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) 2019). This means that as counsellors a substantial number of our clients will be survivors of CSA, whether they ever mention this or not. Survivors are known to stay silent about their CSA experiences.
Disclosure of CSA is difficult, and usually emerges, often in fragments, only after establishing safety within relationships. Mental health diagnoses, and systems of mental health, often place the reason for this in the psyche of the survivor by saying that they have difficulties with trust. This recent research by Susanna Alyce of the University of Essex challenges this suggestion and concludes that the bigger issue rests in the trustworthiness of the service-provider/s survivors turn to for help.
In this workshop, Dr. Susanna Alyce aims to explore issues of working with clients with a history of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), their resultant trauma distress and the role of trust in their process. Her recent study suggests that the difficulty in building trust with CSA survivors is not due to survivors’ inability to trust, as many diagnoses suggest. Becoming trustworthy, in the eyes of the client, is equally as important. The workshop will focus on how participants can improve their own counselling skills in creating a trustworthy environment, and understand how trauma distress might manifest in relationships characterised by trustworthiness and non-trustworthiness. The workshop will also explore how the research is generalizable to other traumatized client groups. The research findings will be presented through the voices of the survivors who participated to demonstrate how the methodology generated accurate data, and participants will work together to explore the trust-enactment model proposed by the research. Finally, the workshop will consider how the trust-enactment model fits with person-centred counselling.
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event
- Participants will be able to reflect on their own counselling skills with clients who are survivors of CSA, and strategies for creating a trustworthy environment.
- Participants will be able to develop an action plan to enhance their professional practice in working with survivors of CSA based on the insights and learning from the workshop.
- Participants will understand the research methodology used in the study on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and trust, and how it facilitated survivors to speak openly about sensitive histories and generated robust data.
- Participants will be able to identify the key findings of the research through the voices of the survivors and understand how it relates to building a relationship where the history and effects of CSA can be discussed and resolved.
- Participants will be able to evaluate a new trust-enactment model proposed by the research and how it aligns with person-centred counselling principles.
- Participants will be able to apply the research findings and trust-enactment model to other traumatized client groups encountered in their work.
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- Counsellors & Psychotherapists working with people who have experienced trauma
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- Increased understanding of trust dynamics in relation to traumatised people such as CSA survivors.
- Development of counselling skills in creating a trustworthy environment and relationship with clients who are CSA survivors.
- Increased empathy and understanding towards survivors of CSA and the challenges they face when seeking help.
Course Content
Presenter
Dr. Susanna Alyce has recently received her doctorate from the University of Essex and teaches trauma-informed Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and yoga. She is currently working towards her diploma as a Person-Centred Counsellor at The Norwich Centre.
She is also a survivor of child sex abuse (CSA). She is a member of the Tavistock Network for Non-Recent CSA. She weaves these threads each to inform the other.
Susanna’s own debilitating anxiety led her to meditation and yoga in her early 20s. These effective self-care practices enabled her to live a full and rewarding life, while managing her internal landscape of fear. It was not until she turned 50 that she discovered the origin of what she could now understand as ‘trauma distress’ from the dissociated and silenced memories of CSA. Both EMDR therapy with a Clinical Psychologist and, more latterly, counselling with a person-centred therapist have helped in her recovery.
She is researching within a “Mad Studies” paradigm issues central to healing and recovery for fellow survivors, and will soon submit her PhD Study into CSA survivors’ experiences of trust and trustworthiness.
