Coming Back Home Part 3: Seeking Safety
More than 95% of women who seek care at Dove House have experienced trauma and 90% suffered childhood sexual abuse. Because of these alarming statistics, it’s more important than ever that residents of the long-term residential treatment facility feel safe, secure and protected as they begin their journey of not only sobriety but healing.
Seeking Safety is the third phase of programming offered at Dove House, and like Stages of Change and IOP, it brings residents along as a cohort as they continue the process of digging deeper to truly understand the root of their addiction and how to recover.
“The idea is that the women have grown a deeper connection as a group through Stages of Change and IOP and will be able to provide emotional support to one another,” said Dove House Clinical Director Lindsay Camplin. “So really, it’s based both on the inner growth of the women and the readiness within their group cohort as a community.”
More specifically, the evidence-based curriculum is designed to address the unique challenges of individuals struggling with substance use disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder through 12 weeks of intensive programming. The group focuses on helping participants achieve the first step in trauma resolution—feeling emotionally, physically and interpersonally safe. Participants learn the relationship between having experienced adverse life experiences and later substance use/abuse.
But the group goes beyond classroom-style learning, as residents are encouraged to make commitments in between sessions to build on session themes and practice skills in between session times.
“Seeking Safety participants are asked to try out the various topics in between sessions, but I focus on the self-determination and empowerment themes to allow women to choose their engagement levels with the “homework” or commitment side of the program,” said Camplin.
These themes are relevant to self-integration, including re-parenting themselves, self-compassion, how to identify safe people in their environment, how to navigate healthy relationships, and how to use their own body and build inner trust to discern what is best for their lives and relationships.
“So often in the experience of trauma, women receive messages like: ‘I am not safe or worthy,’ and ‘I must abandon myself or my needs in order to receive love and belonging,’” said Camplin. “In Seeking Safety, we deconstruct and explore some of these messages and use the group support to have a different experience with people that sends the message of, ‘I am safe to be vulnerable and my most isolating experiences can actually help me build safe connections with safe people.’”
As this new affirming narrative begins to take shape, so does the process of healing. Residents learn and experience how to become their own “safe container” and how to use their bodies, awareness and feelings as a tool intended to guide them in their lives, rather than as a sign that they need to run from the pain and engage in unsafe coping mechanisms like using drugs an
