When Healing Happens
The young women I am privileged to work with have captured my heart. Their longing for acceptance and validation as the fearfully and wonderfully made creatures they are is still present, although very wounded.
In his brilliantly engaging book, Anatomy of the Soul, Dr. Curt Thompson writes,
“We all are born into the world looking for someone looking for us, and we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives.”
The more I work with those who are severely traumatized, the more this adage rings true. My work as a therapist for New Day for Children focuses primarily on attachment - the need we are all born with to form close, emotionally safe bonds. Tragically, traffickers prey on this innate need. At the outset, they appear to offer security, safety and sweet care; in reality this is called grooming which can lead to terrible abuse, developing lack of trust and immense trauma in those who are victimized.
Many of the young women I work with have deep, traumatizing attachment wounds, leaving them vulnerable, insecure, and deeply longing for connection, but unable to make that happen in a healthy way. Their sense of personal worth is shattered. I purpose to form a deep bond of trust so that they experience warmth, acceptance, and a profound sense of being seen, heard and known.
For these girls, healing is a marathon and not a sprint. As we work to calm their nervous system and lessen the intensity of their trauma responses, fight, flight, freeze, etc., they learn to live in the present. This translates into being able to work on school assignments, to experience joy, and to interact with others in a calm and civil manner. It allows them to make plans for their future. It is often a few steps forward and several steps back – but that is how life is for any of us, right? My hope is as these girls’ risk trusting, they ultimately find, “They are loved with an everlasting love, and have been drawn near through never ending kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3
“I want to see others experience what they cannot imagine is possible.”
-Dayne Otto, Licensed Professional Counselor, MEd, LPC
Therapy is a vital tool that equips the kids with the tools they need to work through trauma. Your gifts help provide board certified therapists, like Dayne, who are trained in the most effective therapeutic techniques.