The Safety Team, experts in self-defense and trauma recovery, discuss empowering individuals through martial arts and self-defense. They highlight the importance of trauma-informed self-defense training, the transformative impact of self-defense classes on trauma survivors, and integrating empowerment self-defense with therapy. They also explore teaching body autonomy to children and trauma-informed teaching techniques for maintaining personal boundaries.
Empowerment self-defense empowers women through trauma healing and violence prevention.
Program combines therapy, empowerment, and self-defense techniques for survivors of sexual trauma.
Safety and connection are crucial in trauma treatment for transformative healing.
Deep dives
Empowerment Self-Defense Program Overview
The Safety Team, a group of diverse professionals with expertise in violence prevention and martial arts backgrounds, teaches sexual assault prevention and trauma healing through education, psychoeducation, and empowerment self-defense techniques. Their mission focuses on violence prevention, trauma healing, resilience fostering, and safe community building, aiming to empower women in safe environments by helping them realize their body's power and voice.
Therapeutic Empowerment Self-Defense Program
The Safety Team developed a therapeutic empowerment self-defense program as a complementary treatment for survivors of sexual trauma. The program involves individual sessions and small group settings, attuned to the participants' experiences of violence. It aims to empower women by helping them reclaim their voice, rediscover physical strength, and foster self-efficacy and self-confidence, with evidence suggesting a reduction in sexual assault incidence and positive impact on participants' well-being.
Integration of Empowerment Self-Defense with EMDR
The therapeutic program incorporates body scans, breathing exercises, and butterfly tapping as part of its approach, offering bilateral stimulation similar to EMDR. Movements involve binary motions engaging different planes, providing participants a safe, low-stress, and fun environment to reflect, integrate experiences, and practice strikes and movements. The program emphasizes safety, connection, humor, and diverse participant inclusion, aligning with the principles of somatic psychology and case conceptualization for effective therapy outcomes.
Emphasis on Safety and Trauma Treatment Fundamentals
Safety is highlighted as a fundamental aspect of trauma treatment, emphasizing that without safety, meaningful change cannot occur. Establishing safety and connection is crucial to open individuals up to impactful internal editing and disconfirming experiences. By prioritizing safety and relational security, individuals are better able to access transformative processes that involve working with the right hemisphere first before integrating experiences into logical, cognitive story making in the left hemisphere. Anchoring back into safety post-experience facilitates integrating the newfound narratives, leading to real change.
Body Autonomy and Psychoeducation in Trauma Recovery
The significance of body autonomy and psychoeducation in trauma recovery is underscored. The importance of feeling powerful in one's body is emphasized, starting with understanding bodily sensations and movements before delving into empowerment. Integrating psychoeducation about the nervous system, trauma activations, and triggers helps demystify trauma responses, leading individuals to recognize the impact of sensory information on their present experiences. Through movement practices, individuals learn physical and verbal skills, build internal resources, and gain control, fostering resilience and courage in navigating challenging situations.