Societal, political and natural disasters are a daily reality for many people in today's world. Since 9/11, Americans have faced the fact of terrorism and violence that have long pervaded many other nations. Our own national trauma has impacted us in profound ways, often helping people to reach out across distances they thought were impassable.
Helping professionals are increasingly challenged to find rapid, safe and effective methods for treating the survivors of psychological trauma. (See the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress disorder)
Until now, such methods have been largely unavailable.
Now, Bessel van der Kolk (2004), noted Harvard neurobiologist and researcher on trauma, states that experiential treatment is the only treatment that can be successful for people with stress induced brain changes, such as with PTSD. He calls for experiential treatments that can be operationalized so they can be taught and researched. The Therapeutic Spiral Model (Hudgins, 2002, 2000) is such a model.
TSI has spent the last 4 years developing a training program that produces competently trained experiential teams, as well as adds experiential skills to individual practitioners, educators, and others for their personal growth and recovery. Our training program is skill based, flexible and tailored to adult educational needs and goals for personal and professional development. You will learn about neurobiology and how it prescribes experiential methods such as the Therapeutic Spiral Model to increase change with people who have experienced violence or natural catastrophes.
The Limitations of Current Therapy Options
Neurobiological research into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has shown that trauma responses are rooted in the unconscious mind and stored in the right-brain, which cannot be easily accessed through traditional talk therapy. Thus, many talk therapies treat only the symptoms, leaving the source of trauma unhealed and unresolved while the clinician encounters the dual obstacles of dissociation and retraumatization. ( Van der Kolk, 2003)
On the other hand, the past 10 years have seen experiential therapy come of age. Psychodrama is the seminal method of action change, though it can also carry a risk of retraumatization for trauma survivors. Until now, no therapy model existed which could successfully harness both the power of psychodrama and the containing structure of talk therapy while avoiding the pitfalls common to both.
A New Alternative: The Therapeutic Spiral Model
The Therapeutic Spiral Model™ (TSM) was developed to address the limitations of both talk and action therapies.(Hudgins, 2002, 2000) TSM provides helping professionals with rapid, safe, effective action techniques for treating trauma. The Therapeutic Spiral Model maximizes the effectiveness of psychodrama while helping the clinician stabilize the client in a safe structure built of prescriptive roles for containment, restoration and observation.
Developed during 20 years of practice and teaching, the model integrates classical psychodrama, experiential therapy and research, the neurobiology of trauma, self-psychology and object relations theory. TSM moves past the masking of symptoms to reach the heart, soul and mind for true developmental repair.
Because the Therapeutic Spiral Model is self-renewing, culturally specific, and taught and practiced by members of the community for that community, it has the power to promote change globally even as it adapts to each locality. It provides clinicians and aid workers with a new ability to treat individuals as well as large groups of people quickly and safely, which is greatly needed in times of overwhelming catastrophe. Because it is not limited to one person, organization or country, the Therapeutic Spiral Model has the power to free people from repeated cycles of violence and help them find a place of greater healing, hope and possibility.
What makes the Therapeutic Spiral Model unique?
The Therapeutic Spiral Model offers:
- an understanding of the neurobiological changes in the brain from violence and overwhelming stress.
- a prescription of experiential methods as treatment of choice for trauma survivors
- a safe, clinical, evidence model of experiential change
- a dynamic synthesis of clinical psychology and psychodrama
- a safe therapeutic structure
- techniques for use with individuals or groups
- more rapid progress than traditional talk therapy
- immediate, hands-on tools
- a flexible, culturally specific model
- an effective method for treating traumatized populations
- a self-renewing process, whereby professionals train each other
- evidence-based research of effectiveness (see research)
- a team approach to provide safety for core healing
Who would benefit from the Therapeutic Spiral Model?
The Therapeutic Spiral Model treats post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from:
- physical/emotional abuse
- addictions
- eating disorders
- childhood sexual abuse
- rape and sexual assault
- HIV/AIDS
- chronic physical illness
- war and ethnic conflict
- political torture
- religious persecution
- refugee experience
- natural catastrophes
- witnessing violence
Any professional working with individuals or group survivors of trauma can greatly benefit from TSM techniques. In fact, TSI specializes in self-care for professionals who work directly with the effects of violence in the global community. Our accreditation program focuses not only on behavioral competency at all levels of professional development, but also pays attention to personal restoration and self-care. As you know, direct providers are at high risk of developing PTSD from their own experiences as helpers. See our calendar for the retreats and self-care workshops close to you.
Who can use the Therapeutic Spiral Model?
Any professional working with individual or group survivors of trauma can greatly benefit from TSM techniques:
- psychologists
- social workers
- psychiatrists
- nurses
- psychotherapists
- addiction counselors
- emergency workers
- religious leaders
- aid and relief workers
- educators
- advocates
- refugee workers
- community leaders
- other helping professionals
While TSM started out as a clinical model of experiential therapy it has now been adapted to many community settings. We have found the time tested action structures of the model, while clinically based can easily transfer to other areas such as education, activism and political advocacy.
Success Stories
The joy of experiential methods of change is that most people can benefit from these simple and creative ways to bring the community together. Many of our workshops are for personal restoration during times of stress and can be enjoyed by people seeking not so much to repair the damage of the past but to prevent depletion, compassion fatigue, and/or re-activation of one's own trauma history as a provider.
We also enjoy community events that involve Playback Theatre, art, photos, readings, and other ways to bring creativity alive. See information on our 2003 TSI Fund Raiser being held November 22 honoring Dr. Roberta Culbertson's ten years of service to survivors of violence at the Institute for Violence and Survival at the University of Virginia's Foundation for the Humanitites. In 2002, TSI received a grant from Vfh to develop a humanities-based, community friendly program of education, training, and self-care for Virginians affected by the violence of 911. After a successful pilot program, we are now seeking funds to apply AAT with nurses at the Medical College of Virginia, educators in middle schools in Sheffield, England, and community workers in Northern Ireland and South Africa. Join us for an evening of community and donate to a good cause.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a very common diagnosis. It is also one that people often keep private due to the nature of the violence that caused post-traumatic stress and the disturbing symptoms they suffer as a result.
I am sure that each of you intimately knows at least two people who have either been diagnosed with PTSD or meet the criteria for that disorder which include recurrent intrusive images and thoughts of the trauma, distressing dreams, flashbacks and efforts to avoid reminders of the trauma. They may be neighbors, family, friends of your children, colleagues, your own teachers and so many others. Whole communities experience PTSD with instances of school shooting or serial murders. Entire cultures are raised in poverty, neglect and abuse, never knowing anything better than living life with PTSD. The cycle of violence is thus passed from parent to child, from one race to another, from one nation to another in an unending cycle.
Thus the need for our services at Therapeutic Spiral International has never been greater.
[Read more ...]
How does the Therapeutic Spiral Model work?
A typical group session employs props, art and experiential methods so participants can explore their traumatic experiences in a clinical structure that emphasizes safety and containment. Aided by the direction of an action trauma team, survivors learn how to recognize and use their own personal strengths and expand their ability to draw upon specific roles such as the Containing Double, the Manager of Defenses, the Observing Ego and the Body Double that support conscious functioning.
Participants are assessed according to the type of session that will be produced and address core material only when clinically appropriate. Sessions that address the actual trauma have clear boundaries and contracts for the routes of action. When the action touches directly on core material, the clinician follows principles that take the survivor through a specific step-by-step process.
As you will note, TSI conducts training, education, and direct services in the global community. most of our most of our trainers and team leaders are board-certified psychodramatists by the American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry, and Group Psychotherapy or their own national certifying body. To meet state requirements, a team member licensed in the state of service is on all Therapeutic Spiral International teams as needed. All team members are accredited in the Therapeutic Spiral Model or completing supervised practica as a team member.
Action Against Trauma
TSM in the Community
Many techniques can be easily adapted to individual sessions and for clinicians using experiential and talk modalities.Our new program, Action Against Trauma , now brings the safety of the clinical structures of TSM into the community by using the humanities to build a bridge to educators, emergency workers, and volunteers in many fields. Our AAT motto is "Out of the office and into the streets!"
Since 2002, TSI has been collaborating with the Institute on Violence and Survival at the University of Virginia. Together, we have developed and are testing a community program, we call Action Against Trauma (AAT). Please see Vfh Final Report in our research section (put a link to a document I will send you via email with title as such. ) for further information on the original project. Our current newsletter shows how AAT was effective in supporting community leaders during the SARS crisis. Cathy Wilson is building a community team to help nurses find some resources for themselves to prevent secondary PTSD.
Look for the AAT Trainer’s Manual that will be published by Virginia Foundation for the Humanities this summer with contributions by Ed Hug on neurobiology, Rachel Saury and Roberta Culbertson as our humanists, and Kathy Amsden with a music application. What started out as a book Kate was going to write has turned into a community effort. You will find handouts, powerpoint presentations, everything you need to bring the clinical principles of the Therapeutic Spiral Model into your use of experiential methods, wherever you use them.
How can I be trained in the Therapeutic Spiral Model?
Please see our training information on the following page.
TRAINING INFO >>
