Why Groups Can Help Treat Trauma

?   Group therapy has been a widely accepted treatment option for more than 50 years.

?   Group therapy has been demonstrated to be both empirically effective and cost-efficient.

?   Groups can provide a safe, nurturing, non-judgmental environment where participants can feel accepted and emotionally supported.

?   Groups can offer relief from the aloneness and isolation disaster survivors often feel.

?   Groups can help members to find their voices, to share their experiences, to disclose painful feelings, and to speak the unspeakable.

?   Groups can validate, bear witness, and inspire members.

?  Groups can assist people to begin to restore their connections to others.

?   Groups can relieve the stigma and cultural barriers that often impede help-seeking.

?   Groups provide a context for education and access to accurate information.

?   Groups provide opportunities for members to help others thereby relieving the collective sense of helplessness of survivors and augmenting self-esteem.

?   Groups can help members to share and learn new ways of self-care and new strategies for coping.

?   Groups can help disaster survivors to begin to renew their disrupted sense of trust and hope in leaders, the world and other people.