Diploma for Accompanying Survivors of Sexual Violence

GENERAL AIM:

This diploma aims to contribute to the generation of awareness among participants, about the possibilities for accompanying the transition from victims to survivors, in contexts where it is indispensable to initiate journeys towards healing wounds and recognizing that it is possible to overcome pain and grief.

We deeply believe in process and the importance of personal process in order to become an accompanier. That is why we work with people who have already gone through a TR process or other transpersonal healing processes which incorporate emotional and physical experiences. We are interested in generating individual and collective self-awareness about the transcendence of personal growth and healing as indispensable values and practices for providing accompaniment.

FACE-TO-FACE METHODOLOGY:
The aim of this Diploma is to create a space for holistic and multidisciplinary training which adopts a feminist approach and which integrates a conceptual-experiential methodology and diverse tools for accompaniment. We have developed an accompaniment process which includes psychosomatic and emotional support to enhance autonomy, pleasure and the recovery of subjectivity, so we can become agents of our own lives and sexuality.

The complete process consists of two integral parts: a) The personal work with the methodology of Reencounter Therapy and b) The conceptualization and methodological tools to for accompaniment. Each moment part five and a half months, ending with graduation.

In total, the diploma offers a continuous training over twelve months consisting of a full Sunday sessions every two weeks with a total 23 full day sessions over the year.

a) REENCOUNTER THERAPY (TR):

This first part of the diploma lasts six months. Here we generate an awareness of the participants’ own emotionality – through experiential exercises and body work – aimed at understanding and healing wounds as an act of personal transformation which is deeply linked to collective transformation. During this time we are interested in questioning the participants about why it is important to accompany those who provide accompaniment, because how can we accompany others if we have not first accompanied ourselves?

b) TOOLS FOR ACCOMPANIMENT:

This second component, develops conceptual bases to reflect on and recognize the structural origins of trauma in the control of women’s sexuality and feminized bodies and, therefore, how sexual violence is used as a strategy of domination. We also reflect on the psychosomatic effects of sexual violence. Awareness of this allows participants to be better prepared to accompany others by developing tools directed towards the bodily and sexual autonomy of the survivors based on alternative therapeutic visions.

Participants: Adult women who accompany people in situations of violence who are members of civil society or State institutions, including professionals, therapists, health workers, healers, spiritual guides, teachers, social workers, etc. Women from social organizations, human rights defenders, feminists, women who accompany survivors of different types of violence.

Requirements: Willingness to assume accompaniment and to be open and willing to process/heal personal emotional wounds. Attendance throughout the process.