(MUE, this is primarily for you but I didn't want you to feel I was hijacking your thread )

last night I opened Judith Herman's "Trauma and Recovery" again. The first time I had it, I read all but just barely skimmed through the last chapters....... because I was so far away, in the beginning of the process, that reading about the end seemed meaningless, like a foreign language, to me.

Now I think I understand pretty well the first phases she outlines, and want to know about the reintegration part, so I guess it;s time to take another look.

what I opened to was commentary about group therapy following individual trauma work, and I thought of MUE. Herman recommends group after the telling of the story is come to terms with; a rather loosely supervised group, a social group of all kinds of people with many kinds of issues, not just trauma; in fact a rather changeable cast of participants. All this because the client is going to be coming back into the world, as it were, and will meet all kinds of people and all kinds of situations.

And what she said struck me, that it is in the ruptures & repairs of the group experience that the post trauma person will learn to function again - in life - with its bumps and bruises, its characters, its unexpected turns and demands. My paraphrase of course.

MUE... It seems that this frustrating, complex, annoying, difficult, infuriating, puzzling group of yours is a very good thing indeed - if you find the strength and courage to deal with it - I am one more time in admiration of your courage and determination, and I am hoping that there's a lot of healing in this experience for you.