SY DNE Y ST R E E T CHO I R BRICprogram enables healing for traumatised family A manda, a mother of two children – Ross, 8, and Michael, 12* – had experienced psychological, financial and emotional abuse from her husband of 12 years. Eight months after separating from him, Amanda started with the Building Resilience in Children (BRIC) program. At her first therapy session, Amanda showed symptoms of high anxiety, including difficulty breathing. THE FAM I LY O
She also told her caseworker she had no identity outside of being trauma affected and feared she would not be able to identify whether a relationship was safe or not. She was worried about her children and said she lacked the tools to connect with them and help them deal with their difficult experiences. She noted her youngest son, Ross, was becoming harder to manage because of his angry, oppositional behaviour. Michael, the eldest son, who had been exposed to verbal and psychological abuse, appeared flat and disconnected from both parents. Amanda’s BRIC program started with a six-week therapeutic group that focused on themes such as attachment, intergenerational trauma and the impact of abuse on child brain development. Through her work with the group, Amanda began to recognise the effects of trauma on herself and her children, especially in the boys’ behaviours that she had previously characterised as “aggressive” and “problematic”. She could now see that underneath it all, the children felt very unsafe. Through the combination of the individual therapeutic sessions and the group content, Amanda now had the awareness and tools to self-regulate her own trauma symptoms. This enabled her to better connect with her children, too. Not only did she understand their behaviour but she was also able to teach them how to become aware of what was happening in their bodies and to communicate this change – in effect, co-regulation. This led to a significant reduction in the impact of trauma on Amanda and her sons.
*Names have been changed
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