“My Journey with therapy started as a client. It really changed my life. It showed me that it was necessary to become my own person and this allowed me to view my life with kindness, understanding and forgiveness. It opened up a new way of being in the world to me.

Before coming to One in Four, I had been working in addiction as well as Residential Care, in a secure lock up unit with young people. I always felt like we were firefighting, never getting to the nub of what was really wrong. All their pain could not be fixed with external changes, these would help but for changes to take place it needed to be internal.

So, I began studying Psychotherapy

The training was in Gardiner Street, it was Humanist and integrative training but also very experiential. I got very interested in Gestalt therapy; it's a form of therapy that looks at the human mind and behaviour as a whole helping us to focus on the present moment and explore any unfinished business that is still active in our behaviours. I started to see the person as a complete person. I am very drawn to the use of the body in therapy, healing the body and mind together.

 

I believe Therapy makes us be the best versions of ourselves we can be. Everyone should go to therapy.

When we go back to our early histories, and relationships, it’s important that we see ourselves with kindness, express our hurts, and bring the shadow parts into the light.

I love shadow work, I have found that if we leave these parts of self in the dark we are denying parts of ourselves.  Shadow work is inviting your unconscious mind to uncover the parts that are repressed and hidden and bringing them into the world. This can include trauma or parts of our personality that our unconscious considers undesirable. Anthony de Mello says “what we are aware of, we are in control of and what we aren’t aware of is in control of us.”

If we know the parts we feel are un-showable to the world and we bring them into the light, we will be able to find the courage and freedom to trust ourselves.

When a child is abused sexually by a member of their own family, family friend or stranger they stop trusting themselves, questioning “did they do something wrong”? They develop in the world with a sense of shame; it’s not their shame, it’s someone else’s.

That motivates me, when I can see people grow, when people can come back into the room and they can give back that anger and pain, to the person that deserves it. They are able maybe for the first time in their life to stop internalising it, and the punishment of themselves stops. Being able to trust your own self, and to become who you were meant to be.

Sexual violence impacts people in many different ways, it can stunt your mental emotion and spiritual growth and stops people developing in a normal healthy way. It is a deep and painful wound, Peter Levine calls it a “soul wound”.

Therapy can be a painful journey, but it’s worth every step back into life.

I have been with One in Four since 2010 and it’s been a joy watching the organisation grow, and take care of survivors and their families. When someone has been abused it impacts the whole family.

Our new building is incredible, it’s bright,  airy, and central. The old building was down a lane way, hidden away as if we were a secret, it mirrored sexual violence. Now we are out in the middle of the street, its bold, it’s how it should be.

My advice to any survivor reading this is: take back your power, hand back the shame and the guilt, it’s not yours. Start to have compassion and empathy and understanding  for yourself. Give yourself a voice and the freedom to express all that needs to be heard and witnessed.

 Your most important relationship is with yourself and when we develop a healthy relationship with self it gives us room for other healthy relationships, giving us the wisdom and strength to be present to ourselves and others.

Sexual violence is underfunded and misunderstood. Fundraising is really important, many people who have been impacted by sexual violence are not able to live their best life, so they need the support of you to help them, to start to live that best life.

Fundraising gives us the resources to listen.

The words “listen” and “silent” have the same letters. Sometimes all someone needs is a non-judgmental space, with the silence they need so they can be heard, the space they need to be witnessed. “

 

Bobbi Grogan

Psychotherapist with One in Four