A Year of Growth!

It is hard to believe that it is already January of 2016. It was a little over a year ago that this organization was formed. The group formed as an outgrowth of discussions over a period of several years between therapists who had experience in already treating abortion related trauma. The discussions focused on the need to both professionalize the treatment of abortion related trauma by using evidenced based practice and also to begin to provide trainings for professional therapists in the field.

It is exciting to see the goals of the organization are already being met in the first year. The three main goals that were set for the first year were to: 1.Grow the organization by adding member therapists. 2. To begin to provide professional articles and writing on the topic. 3. To begin to do trainings for other therapists.

We have grown as an organization and have written some wonderful articles that will begin to provide material for the use of evidenced based practice in treating those clients who present with possible abortion related trauma in their past. We are excited about beginning the process of writing a manual for professional therapists to use in treating clients within a group format. This will be the first of it’s kind published that specifically uses evidenced based practice and sound psychological theory for the treatment of abortion related trauma. The manual will be offered to therapists as a guide and can be used in a variety of setting such as private practice, mental health centers, jails etc. By using an evidenced based practice manual, this would further legitimize abortion as a potential trauma since it would be treated as any other trauma using evidenced based practice. This would further bring respect to the work that we do. Those clients who don’t come from a faith background would have more opportunity to access this type of service also. An additional benefit will be the ability to gather data as to the effectiveness of the group by doing pre and post tests on symptoms etc.

Our next goal will be to produce a book for therapists on treating individuals and couples who present with abortion related trauma in their past. This book will not only include the use of evidenced based practice for trauma but will also have separate chapters and/or sections that are based on the use of different theories such as Cognitive Behavioral and Emotionally Focused Therapy, just to name a few.

This is going to be an exciting year! If you are a therapist that is interested in joining, you are welcome to contact me through the website.