Moving Past Sexual Abuse Group Starting Soon

Raeburn House, Auckland, New Zealand, is running another Moving Past Sexual Abuse group. In the past the group was organised as a support group in which participants would be surrounded by survivors who understood their experiences and sharing one’s stories and supporting each other was the strongest emphasis.

This new Moving Past Sexual Abuse group is about discovering ways of how to leave the abuse and the legacies of the abuse behind oneself. Rather than concentrating on what happened in the past the emphasis is on having a life worth living NOW, today, and the days to come.

You will be shown how it is possible to regain control and reconnect with joy, wisdom, and peace of mind. You will find that the capacity to live in wellness has always been dormant within you waiting for you to connect with it. The Moving Past Abuse group is geared to help you realise that potential!

You can expect that we will address how to deal with anger, difficult emotions, social connections, relationships with self and others, depression, perceptions, thought, and in general how not to be ruled by the past.

Here are the starting dates and details:

When: Mondays, 8 weeks, Starts 30 July
Time:·7:00pm – 9:00pm
Total Cost: $80
Facilitator: Gudrun Frerichs
Venue: Raeburn House, 138 Shakespeare Road, Milford

For more information contact Raeburn House, phone: (09) 441 8989 or emaillearning@raeburnhouse.org.nz.

Find more interesting groups run by Raeburn House by going to their website.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an interesting issue and readers have commented lots on posts touching on forgiveness (see comments here). It seems that to forgive is very difficult. I know, it has been a difficult issue in my recovery. I never felt compelled to forgive my abusers because it felt I would let them off the hook. It felt they would get away with having hurt me. I wouldn't have any of that! Instead I had phantasies of them regretting their actions and understanding the impact of their actions.

How To Deal With Anger

Anger is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a normal reaction to being abused, betrayed, hurt, or otherwise disrespected. The important question is how to deal with anger appropriately. It is really important to remember that:

for many (survivors of abuse) anger is associated with strong feelings of fear, anxiety, guilt, or shame because often abuse was accompanied with anger and survivors don’t want to be like their perpetrators. This is, according to my understanding, often the reason why survivors to repress or suppress anger. However, the refusal to be angry (or give your angry parts room to express anger in appropriate situations, is in many ways the source of many anger problems.

How Multiples Can Show Therapists How To Deal With Anger

Not too long ago people involved in the business of therapy, counselling, self-growth, and change would universally claim that pent-up anger needs to be vented. Armed with sticks, bats, tennis-rackets, towels twisted to rock-hard batons, and telephone-directories clients were encouraged by their therapist to express their anger by bashing on chairs, tables, floors, or mattresses – with the occasional encouragement to “put some words” to it.

Although it might have been a great way of approaching anger issues in some cases, nowadays the agreed upon knowledge is that it only vents some energy but doesn’t deal with the underlying issue that caused the anger to be there in the first place.

What Is Passive Aggressive Behaviour

Conflict situations with an angry person are characterised by noticeable contact in the form of friction or even collision. The angry person’s point of view and wants are generally obvious whether they are unrealistic or not. This is very different when dealing with passive aggressive behaviours. Like pathological anger, passive aggressiveness is caused by a person’s inability to express anger healthily. 

The anger could be repressed or suppressed to such extend that the passive aggressive person is not even aware of his/her anger. When confronted with being called angry, the passive aggressive person may be convinced the other person has most certainly got the wrong end of the stick.

What Is A Pathologically Angry Person?

How will you know whether you or a person close to you is a pathologically angry person? A sure sign is when you notice a pervasive behavioural pattern that can range from being negative, irritable, bitter, resentful, or having temper tantrums on one side to being hostile, aggressive, self-destructive, furious, or having regular rage attacks on the other end of the continuum of anger.

How Does Anger Become Pathological?

Anger becomes pathological when a person has over a long time mismanaged their anger. This starts in most cases already in childhood when children are raised within a family and/or society in which children's expression of affect and especially of anger is discouraged or even punished. These are families in which children are maybe see, but certainly not heard. These are families in which usually only parents are entitled to express anger and they often do so to punish or discipline their kids.

Is Your Anger Appropriate or Inappropriate?

What is appropriate anger – and is there such a thing as inappropriate anger? Anger is one of the eight basic emotions (they are joy, acceptance, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation) we observe universally in people all over the world. Anger is a valid, necessary, and appropriate human emotion.  I consider anger, like all other emotions, as data, or better: emotional information about the quality of an experience we have. Whereas in the distant past anger has informed humans about immanent threat to their lives, nowadays anger rather informs us about a trespassing, injustice, disrespect, or pending  physical or emotional harm.