March 16 through September 12, 2020
Weekly emails with information, essays, exercises, & homework
Twelve 90-minute group calls (approx bi-weekly)
PDF booklet of all materials (to be distributed at the end of our program)
Private Facebook group for us to continue our learning and connecting
Sliding scale based on total household annual income (in US dollars):
over $75,000 —>$225/month for six months
$50,000 to $75,000 —>$162/month for six months
below $50,000 —> $117/month for six months
Note: By registering for this program you agree to the Office Policy and Client Service Agreement terms and conditions.
Registration currently closed. Please subscribe to my weekly(ish) newsletter to receive information on future offerings.
TIE for Sexual Trauma Survivors is a six month group program that is part support group, part practical tools and utilizing the Trauma Informed Embodiment (TIE)™ approach, and part psycho-education. It is open only to womxn who have experienced sexual trauma. This trauma could have happened at any point in your life, and for most of us we have experienced sexual trauma events multiple times, spanning from childhood into adulthood. Sexual trauma includes abuse, assault, and harassment, as all impact our sense of safeness, our physiological systems and our ways of being in the world.
The program is six months in duration, beginning March 16. There will be bi-weekly (every other week) group video calls (via Zoom), weekly emails, and a private Facebook group. Because I want this program to be able to reach as many womxn as possible, I offer a sliding scale fee based your annual household income (no need to prove to me what your income is, I trust folks to choose the price point that is right for you and your family).
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During our six months together we will explore our personal sexual trauma experiences, examine how our culture exacerbates our trauma through its attitudes towards and treatment of womxn and the disbelief of victims while making excuses for perpetrators, and how current events are impacting us and activating our trauma responses. We will also learn simple, practical ways to calm our nervous systems and gentle ways to come back into our bodies, connect to our boundaries, and find our own ways to center and ground.
Sexual harassment, abuse, and assault can and do have traumatic impacts on our bodies, minds, and spirits. Living in a culture that doesn’t respect or see womxn as fully human, a culture that objectifies us, a culture that constantly tells us how we are less than, and our bodies are not our own but are only meant for the pleasure of men exacerbates our trauma and has us living in a highly activated state. As a part of our personal trauma processing journey we need to learn how to regulate our nervous systems so they work as they are meant to, how to connect to our physiological boundaries and reclaim our bodies as our own, find our own ways to center and ground, and acknowledge, embrace, and grow our internal and external resources. This work allows us to be more intentional, mindful, and compassionate in our own lives and in the world, to focus our rage and pain in appropriate and helpful – instead of damaging and harmful (to ourselves & our relationships) – ways, and move from surviving to thriving as a way of being within ourselves and in the world.
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In order for us to create a world where womxn feel safe walking down the street alone, safe in their own homes, safe in their own bodies, we need to be able to remain calm in challenging situations, to speak our truth without malice, to have compassion for ourselves and others who have had similar experiences and come together in true community, we need to have practical tools to calm our systems and the true understanding that we are not alone.
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My why for this group
In 2016, shortly after the Brock Turner conviction and sentencing, I began to think of ways that my work could be of service to and in support of womxn who have experienced and live with sexual trauma. At the time I was still working out how to offer the TIE™ approach as an online group format and developing that program became my main focus for the next year.
Then in late 2017 my focus shifted back to how to support sexual trauma survivors specifically. I considered facilitating an online support group, but then for a number of reasons I decided not to. One of the reasons I decided against it at the time is that sometimes support groups can be re-traumatizing and I have found there needs to be a good structure of not only time to talk and verbally process but also to work on ways to regulate our physiological systems and emotions. I hadn’t yet offered the online TIE™ group, so I didn’t have a structure that I knew would work for those who have experienced this kind of trauma, that would be beneficial and not harmful.
Towards the end of the first cohort of the TIE™ Level 1 I came back to how to support persons who have experienced sexual trauma specifically, and I developed a program, using the TIE™ approach and format specifically for those of us who have sexual abuse, assaults, and harassment, because I believe those of us who have experienced sexual trauma do need a type of support that is different from other types of trauma, particularly given our culture’s attitudes towards women and sexuality.
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About Gwynn
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist associate in the state of Washington in the US. The focus of my work and practice is trauma (specifically complex and intergenerational trauma), grief, embodiment and their intersections. I deeply believe in the power of community. Because of this, some of my work is offered in circle or group format.
I believe in tearing down the status quo and dismantling our oppressive culture and that this is both an internal and external process.
My training in family systems during graduate school and in universal systems (micro and macro) in undergraduate school (I have a Bachelor of Science in Physics), instilled deep within me the understanding of how, while we are all unique individuals, we are also part of, contributors to, and victims of our current oppressive and patriarchal culture.
What this means, is in my work I help shed light on the interconnections and intersections of our own lived experience, how the experiences of our ancestors have been passed down to us, and how the culture we live in impacts who and how we are in the world.
To learn more about me and my work, you can go here.
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If you would like to connect with me for a free 30-minute chat to see if this group is right for you, please fill out the form on this page and we’ll get something set up.
To read essays I have written check out my blog.
To sign up for my weekly newsletter go here.
To learn more about working with me individually you can go here.