Motivating Survivors of Child Abuse to Embrace Second Chances Around three decades ago, American psychologist Dr Stephen Porges developed polyvagal theory, which highlighted the impact of trauma on individuals’ ability to form thriving connections and forge a meaningful life. The basic idea of this theory is that the level of safety we … Continue reading
Discovering Healing Through EMDR: A Journey of Hope In the realm of trauma therapy, one approach stands out for its innovative and effective techniques: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). At HAVOCA, we believe in providing survivors with information to therapies that can transform lives, and EMDR has proven to … Continue reading
Identifying and Understanding Revictimization Patterns Revictimization is defined as an experience that will be endured repeatedly. For more than four decades, researchers, social workers and therapists have discussed the probability that once a child has been sexually assaulted, s/he is at higher risk for suffering subsequent assaults. David Finkelhor and … Continue reading
Healing Childhood Trauma Part 1 – ACCEPTANCE SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY In any type of loss, there is a period of time when the loss does not seem real. When dealing with the pervasive and multi-layered losses caused by long-term childhood abuse, the devastation is so profound, a … Continue reading
What Happened When I Told the Truth? My name is Lee Reinecke, and when I was in graduate school to become a school psychologist, I was advised to have some counseling sessions at the university. If I was to develop empathy for others who needed the assistance of a mental … Continue reading
Therapy Changed My Life ‘I swapped addiction for therapy, conscious behavioural choice and self-care’ Walking the Thames towpath, I caught up with a man I assessed, given that I was hypervigilant, to be bigger and stronger than me. When he glanced back, I sensed he was also hypervigilant. I intuited … Continue reading
Songs of Healing: How Music Therapy Can Help Survivors Of Abuse Find Closure Trauma survivors dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may have trouble verbally expressing their problems. A team of researchers in Finland found that patients who received music therapy showed a 50% or greater improvement in treating their symptoms … Continue reading
The Role Gaming Plays In Therapy One of the major changes in the way we view the role games play in our lives was the study done on those who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It found that visuospatial video games interfere with flashbacks. The study divided the test … Continue reading
How Art Therapy Can Help Adult Victims Of Child Abuse Heal And Thrive? Art therapy, which has been around since the 1940s, has been proven to be an effective tool to process traumatic experiences in a healthy way. One small study found that art therapy can reduce stress levels and negative mental … Continue reading
The Cycle of Abuse It is massively confusing when the pain of the abuse you are experiencing, is so immense that the need to hide and protect yourself, clashes with your default yearning to be able to love the person hurting you; this is especially the case when your abuser … Continue reading
