When There Are No Therapists: A Psychoeducational Group for People Who Have Experienced Social Disasters

ABSTRACT

A social disaster is when categories of people are politically or socially targeted by virtue of their social identities and suffer ongoing targeting and oppression. Survivors of social disasters often experience similar traumatic symptoms as those of survivors of natural disasters but, unlike most other types of disasters, the threats that caused the trauma and the conditions that undermine survivor’s identity, safety, trust, and sense of control continue to exist. This article shares a model of a psychoeducational group developed and field tested by the authors and used with a group of people targeted because of their queer identities.

KEYWORDS:

• Disaster
• psychoeducational groups
• resilience
• trauma
• training-of-trainers

Notes

¹ Exposure to overwhelming events; loss of control of one’s life; fear of harm or death; experiencing assault or bodily harm; experiencing profound losses; constantly feeling harassed, misunderstood, and devalued.

² Avoidance, repetitive thinking, emotional activation or emotional numbing, difficulty concentrating, uncontrollable emotions, flashbacks, triggering, loss of hope.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Miller

Joshua Miller, PhD, is a professor at Smith College School for Social Work. His major research interests are psychosocial capacity building in response to disasters and antiracism work.

Xiying Wang

Xiying Wang, PhD, is a professor in the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Beijing Normal University. Her major research interests include gender studies, feminist theory and human sexualities, qualitative research methods, gender-based violence, sex education, and women living with HIV/AIDS. She has been teaching social work practices, qualitative research methods, and feminist theories and practices, and disaster social work.