Principles of Helping Families come through Trauma

Principles of Helping Families come through Trauma

1. The basic focus in the course is on the family member, not the child. This means we don’t allow the “saga-of-the-ill-child” to take over our general group discussion. We continually move the issue back to family needs: “What do you feel when this happens?”; “How can you take care of yourself in this?”, “What do you need?” We are trying to teach them not to permit their ill child to dominate the family. We do this by not letting them dominate the class.

2. Encouraging families to regain the primacy of their own lives: We give out tons of information in this course. It is there because it gives families a real sense of mastery and control. It is there because it gives families a real sense of mastery and control. But we are not interested in memorization. All the “educational stuff” is a vehicle for bringing families together so that we can impart the real message. As families, we have responsibility to learn about the illness, and do the best we can for our will child. But we must also reinstate and develop our own life plan.

3. Expressing anger and grief as the crux of self-care: People who are suffering from a brain disorder are often exasperating to be around. At the same time, the pain of losing the beloved “person who used to be there” is anguishing. Every time a family member can express negative feelings, and these responses are normalized and validated by others around them, the group has helped an individual move one step closer to freedom from self-recrimination and shame.

4. We teach empathy as a means of gaining acceptance of loss: The course is based on a primary assumption: Families need help coming to terms with the tragic losses in human interaction, communication, and relationship that mental illness imposes. When we teach families the compassionate understanding of what the experience is like, we are preparing them for acceptance of loss. We are helping them replace cherished expectations with new-found respect for the courage it takes for their child too live with a brain disorder.

5. Because we are family members we can help each other let go: they say when someone you love dies, it can take two or three years to come to terms with “letting them go”. When the loved one suffers from a mental illness, this grief work is terribly difficult. As a group leader, you are not expected to be immune from the feelings and emotions that teaching families will arouse in you. We encourage you to be yourselves, to share what you are going through in your own heart, to join the families in the room as “one of them”, in process. In mental illness, “letting go” is something we all work on, all the time.

Blogging from Your Wix Blog Dashboard

On the dashboard, you have everything you need to manage your blog in one place. You can create new posts, set categories and more. To head to your Dashboard, open the Wix Editor and click on Blog > Posts.

Blogging from Your Published Site

Did you know that you can blog right from your published website? After you publish your site, go to your website’s URL and login with your Wix account. There you can write and edit posts, manage comments, pin posts and more! Just click on the 3 dot icon ( ⠇) to see all the things you can do.

#bloggingtips #WixBlog