Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This study demonstrates how healing rituals and integrative mind/body activities were incorporated into a trauma recovery treatment group for women survivors of domestic violence. By creating rituals unique to the group and adapting others rooted in cultural or faith based heritages, these activities helped the participants move past a “liminal” state in which their social identity and personal narratives were constructed around experience of trauma and abuse. Through ritual, blessings, poetry, art, and music, the women established a deep sense of “communitas” and supported each other in the work of self-reclamation and healing. Drawing on theoretical concepts from anthropology, postmodernism, humanistic psychology, neurobiology, social work, and existentialism, the group, “Rites of Passage” was developed for women in the later stages of trauma recovery and after an initial truth claiming ceremony, discouraged repetitive disclosures focusing on the history of abuse. In addition to significant reductions in PTSD symptomology, structured interviews, and focus groups identified a four state healing process: establishing autonomy; establishing hope; and reclaiming self that was common for women as they moved from surviving abuse to thriving.