PTSD---WORK TRAUMA SUPPORT GROUP

*Please Pass This Message ON*

Chauncey Hare, licensed family counselor, co-author of Work Abuse:  How to Recognize and Survive It will facilitate a private (closed and secure) on-line support group at Mental Health Net ONLY for *severely* traumatized targets of work abuse---and **only if enough of these people show interest**.

The purpose of a support group for PTSD people is to provide validation which is essential as an adjunct to recovery. The group is not intended to be a substitute for therapy with an in-person therapist.

If you have interest please e-mail Chauncey at workfamily@workmail.com

Please pass this message on to as many likely candidates as you know.

People who have been *heavily* scapegoated at work and show at least three of the four PTSD symptoms listed below, will be considered for inclusion in the group.

People who do not have these severe symptoms may enquire about a separate support group for people who are struggling with milder ongoing abuses (bad bosses, disrespectful co-workers, unresolvable conflicts, etc).

POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND ITS SYMPTOMS

If you have experienced scapegoating or bullying at work, you know the indications of post-traumatic stress:

1. You reexperience the traumatic event unpredictably and spontaneously day or night (flashbacks) causing you anxiety or depression.

2. You find yourself avoiding thoughts, activities or situations that arouse recollection of the traumatic event.

3. You experience diminished interest in activities, detachment from others, and a sense of a foreshortened future (fatalism).

4. You suffer difficulty sleeping, irritability, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, especially in the presence of anything that symbolizes or resembles the traumatic event.

These trauma stress symptoms, when left unhealed, may linger for years after you have been scapegoated, and may disable you so badly you can't return to work without being inundated and incapacitated by reawakened trauma memories that are imprinted in your body and lie dormant, waiting to be retriggered.

The origins of post-trauma emotional stress that occur during scapegoating and that must be healed are the following:

Long-term autonomic nervous system arousal--your fight-or-flight responses to the threat you perceived throughout the entire period you were scapegoated.

Bereavement or psychological sense of loss due to separation from your source of income, identity, and your work community (even as unsupportive as it was, it was what you had).

Victimization, humiliation, subjugation all contribute to shame feelings that associate to defilement by specific perpetrators at work. Sadism by perpetrators is particularly traumatic.

The isolation and deep injustice of not being seen and being used and lied to - all contribute to shame feelings associated with betrayal.

Death imagery, premonitions and anticipation of calamity or misfortune. Fatalism and disillusionment about life.

If you are in the midst of being scapegoated, you likely feel completely engrossed and absorbed in the experience of it. You may feel trapped, unable to escape the pervasive feelings of anxiety or the violent images that dominate your consciousness. You may also feel a loss of self-continuity or self-sameness that represents the absence of a cohesive sense of self. For a very long time afterward - perhaps years if you do not mend - you may feel vulnerable, anticipating threats or situations that might repeat the abuse. The preoccupation with the crisis event even years after it is over, including the flashbacks of
intruding memories and obsessive thinking, is actually a naturally occurring attempt to heal from the trauma that is being frustrated and recycled.

The natural phases of trauma injury and recovery that a work abused person may experience are: (1) the initial and continuing arousal responses to the multiple threats that occur during the period of scapegoating; (2) denial and avoidance of the fact that scapegoating can and has happened (denial is assisted by co-workers, family, unknowing therapists, and the society generally); (3) intrusion of feelings and images related to the abuse (flashbacks); (4) working through of the abuse and shame feelings; and (5) completion and integration of the abuse events.

Most work abuse targets at present become trapped cycling between the denial and avoidance phase and the flashback phase of recovery, and do not progress to working through and integrating the abuse experience; they are unable to overcome their denial, which is held in place by self-blame. Self-blame is prolonged because the person's experience of being abused is not socially validated.

The purpose of a support group for PTSD people is to provide validation needed as an adjunct to recovery. The group is not intended to be a substitute for therapy with an in-person therapist.

Contact Chauncey Hare if you have interest in the Work Trauma Support Group. You may also enquire about a separate support group for dealing with ongoing abuses at work (unresolvable conflicts, bad bosses, etc.)

Chauncey's email address is: workfamily@workmail.com