IMPACT Chicago instructor Rob Babcock reflects on the importance of developing verbal boundary setting skills for safety and the importance of their practice in the IMPACT Chicago Core Program. Enhance your boundary setting skills in the November8, 9, & 10 Core Program at the Knapp Center, 3145 W. Pratt Blvd, Chicago IL. IMPACTchicago.org or info@impactchicago.org
Out of context, boundary setting can sound like a mundane task for two low level bureaucrats to figure out exactly where a town line begins and ends. But in the IMPACT Chicago Core Program, it is an invaluable part of our curriculum. So many women in our society are not socialized to set clear boundaries; we often hear from students that it is easier to hit someone than to set a verbal boundary with an aggressor.
But here is a kicker (no pun intended): verbal boundary setting skills will get tested far more than any physical skills. Systematically robbing women and girls of their voice is often a first step for a predator to establish control. I think one of the primary reasons for this is that male predators are often portrayed as invincible so that they are able to get away with intimidating and controlling a woman through the use of their voice or other non-violent actions (e.g. refusing to cooperate, blocking an entrance/exit).
When women have the opportunity to learn and practice effective boundary setting with an aggressor, for instance, ”No, I am going out tonight with my friends,” or “Go away and leave me alone,” or “I am going to take the job that works best for me,” he is often rendered powerless. Not only they, but the women they intimidate realize that these aggressors get away with their control because they are propped up by unrealistic images of men and masculinity.
One of the best parts of boundary setting? When it is done publically, and people notice. When others see a woman effectively setting clear boundaries, they are that much stronger and emboldened to stand up for themselves.
Rob Babcock, IMPACT Chicago Instructor
For an example of verbal boundary setting, look for the November 25 blog, titled: “I Projected My Voice the Moment I Needed it"
Monday, November 4, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
I learned to use my voice!
Shireen Gul describes how
attending an IMPACT workshop increased her knowledge and confidence. To see the full article originally
published September 21 in Tech News, the student newspaper at Illinois
Institute of Technology, click here.
Monday, October 21, 2013
"If She Hadn't Worn That": Saying NO to Blaming Women for Rape
Slutwalk
protests started in Toronto in 2011 in response to a Canadian police officer
saying that women could avoid rape if they didn’t dress like sluts. Chicago (most
recently September 2013) and other major cities have also held rallies and
marches since 2011 protesting the idea that women are responsible for sexual
assault because of how they dress or behave.
Like Slutwalk, IMPACT Chicago is working to create a world where women are not told they are responsible for violence they experience because of how they dress or behave. In addition to believing women should dress as they want, we also want to shout from the rooftops that women learning and using physical and verbal self-defense skills is a powerful approach to creating social change and increasing safety for all women.
IMPACT International Directors recently reflected on the mission of Slutwalk and how it connects to our work. One theme Directors addressed was the lack of relationship between ways women dress and sexual assault. In this blog, Lisa Scheff, IMPACT Bay Area; Jill Shames, IMPACT Israel; Richard Chipping, London Centre for Personal Safety; and Heidi Hornbacher, IMPACT Personal Safety-Southern California offer their views on the lack of relationship of dress to sexual assault.
Lisa Scheff of IMPACT Bay Area says: “Slutwalk was born out of an egregious statement of victim blaming, ‘Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.’ One of the (many) problems with that statement is that how a woman dresses does not cause or prevent rape. Period. It is important for people to avoid confusing teaching women how to avoid rape and teaching people not to rape. There has been a tendency for people to start from the premise that you shouldn't teach women to dress differently and then generalize it to ‘you shouldn't teach women to change their behavior to prevent rape’ which gets interpreted as you shouldn't teach women to defend themselves."
Jill Shames of IMPACT Israel notes that “researchers have found no significant correlation between how women dress and their likelihood to be assaulted. The factors that actually contribute to vulnerability have much more to do with how a woman moves (i.e. lack of confidence, attentiveness, physical coordination and purpose) and not with what she chooses to wear. In Saudi Arabia, women are covered from head to toe and have severe sexual assault problems.”
Richard Chipping of London Centre for Personal Safety adds: “We need to focus on the perpetrators’ calculations.…babies in nappies and nuns in habits have suffered sexual violence. This violence hasn't happened because of their behaviour or dress-sense. There was a 90's study in the City of London that mapped hemlines onto the economic cycle, but found to researchers surprise that there was a slight increase in sexual violence during recessions when hemlines were descending.”
Heidi Hornbacher of IMPACT Personal Safety-Southern California notes: “We want to be absolutely clear that nothing in a woman's behavior or dress promotes or incites rape; the cause of rape is rapists, however, all of us can develop better skills for recognizing people (strangers or familiars) who are likely to rape and getting out of dangerous situations. We are not at fault, but we can develop skills that make us ‘hard targets.’ ”
Over the next three months, IMPACT Chicago will run additional blogs highlighting key points made by IMPACT International Directors: self-defense is about safety for all (November), self-defense can stop violence for ourselves and others (December), and addressing our own language (January 2014).
IMPACT Chicago promoted Slutwalk 2013 on our Facebook page with the following post: “Slutwalk 2013 Chicago-because we need to change victim-blaming culture by working at multiple levels, from women knowing how to prevent, stop, report, intervene, and prosecute rapists to creating communities committed to stopping rape and rapists so that all women and girls are safe.”
Like Slutwalk, IMPACT Chicago is working to create a world where women are not told they are responsible for violence they experience because of how they dress or behave. In addition to believing women should dress as they want, we also want to shout from the rooftops that women learning and using physical and verbal self-defense skills is a powerful approach to creating social change and increasing safety for all women.
IMPACT International Directors recently reflected on the mission of Slutwalk and how it connects to our work. One theme Directors addressed was the lack of relationship between ways women dress and sexual assault. In this blog, Lisa Scheff, IMPACT Bay Area; Jill Shames, IMPACT Israel; Richard Chipping, London Centre for Personal Safety; and Heidi Hornbacher, IMPACT Personal Safety-Southern California offer their views on the lack of relationship of dress to sexual assault.
Lisa Scheff of IMPACT Bay Area says: “Slutwalk was born out of an egregious statement of victim blaming, ‘Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.’ One of the (many) problems with that statement is that how a woman dresses does not cause or prevent rape. Period. It is important for people to avoid confusing teaching women how to avoid rape and teaching people not to rape. There has been a tendency for people to start from the premise that you shouldn't teach women to dress differently and then generalize it to ‘you shouldn't teach women to change their behavior to prevent rape’ which gets interpreted as you shouldn't teach women to defend themselves."
Jill Shames of IMPACT Israel notes that “researchers have found no significant correlation between how women dress and their likelihood to be assaulted. The factors that actually contribute to vulnerability have much more to do with how a woman moves (i.e. lack of confidence, attentiveness, physical coordination and purpose) and not with what she chooses to wear. In Saudi Arabia, women are covered from head to toe and have severe sexual assault problems.”
Richard Chipping of London Centre for Personal Safety adds: “We need to focus on the perpetrators’ calculations.…babies in nappies and nuns in habits have suffered sexual violence. This violence hasn't happened because of their behaviour or dress-sense. There was a 90's study in the City of London that mapped hemlines onto the economic cycle, but found to researchers surprise that there was a slight increase in sexual violence during recessions when hemlines were descending.”
Heidi Hornbacher of IMPACT Personal Safety-Southern California notes: “We want to be absolutely clear that nothing in a woman's behavior or dress promotes or incites rape; the cause of rape is rapists, however, all of us can develop better skills for recognizing people (strangers or familiars) who are likely to rape and getting out of dangerous situations. We are not at fault, but we can develop skills that make us ‘hard targets.’ ”
Over the next three months, IMPACT Chicago will run additional blogs highlighting key points made by IMPACT International Directors: self-defense is about safety for all (November), self-defense can stop violence for ourselves and others (December), and addressing our own language (January 2014).
IMPACT Chicago promoted Slutwalk 2013 on our Facebook page with the following post: “Slutwalk 2013 Chicago-because we need to change victim-blaming culture by working at multiple levels, from women knowing how to prevent, stop, report, intervene, and prosecute rapists to creating communities committed to stopping rape and rapists so that all women and girls are safe.”
Monday, October 14, 2013
IMPACT Chicago Instructors Make An IMPACT
IMPACT Chicago instructors are part of a larger community of IMPACT instructors and self-defense instructors who teach empowerment self-defense outside of IMPACT. The past few months, IMPACT Chicago instructors have been part of national forums where we have exchanged self-defense resources, skills, and knowledge.
2013 National Organization for Women Conference
IMPACT Chicago Instructor Martha Thompson was a panelist in the Violence Against Women track of the 2013 National Organization for Women Conference in Chicago. For more about that, see the IMPACT Chicago blog “Addressing Mis-Perceptions About Self-Defense and Feminism".
2013 National Women’s Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF) Self-Defense Instructors Conference and Martial Arts Camp (photo)
IMPACT Chicago instructors Margaret Vimont and Martha Thompson were trainers for the NWMAF Self-Defense Instructors Conference and Martial Arts Camp. Rob Babcock, Bruce Brio, and Ben Ruiz joined Margaret and Martha along with DC IMPACT Instructor and Director Carol Middleton to offer Introduction to IMPACT to camp participants. Class Assistants who were also attending the camp were Deb Mier (Chicago), Patti Fievoli (Ontario), and Katy Mattingly (Michigan).
IMPACT Chicago Instructors Katie Skibbe and Martha Thompson attended the the NWMAF Self-Defense Instructors Conference, learning from other self-defense instructors such as: Shura Gat, Energy Awareness and Self-Defense; Joy Williamson, Teaching Self-Defense to Blind and Visually Impaired People; Carmel Drewes, Understanding and Explaining Trauma to Self-Defense Participants; Kate Webster and Susan Barney, Five Fingers of Self-Defense.
Margaret Vimont offered a session: “From The Beginning Into The Do: Teaching To The Adult Student.”
Martha Thompson was on two panels:
“Does Self-Defense Really Work? Experience, Evidence, and Research” with Darlene DeFour (Hunter College), Jennifer Keller(Stanford), Silke Schultz (MA thesis on self-defense), Lee Sinclair (No Means No Worldwide).
“Working with Men and Boys” with Nancy Lanoue (Thousand Waves), Clara Porter (Prevention, Action, Change), Lee Sinclair (No Means No Worldwide).
National Women’s Martial Arts Federation Self-Defense Instructors Research Reading Club
Martha Thompson joined 10 other self-defense instructors on a 1 hour conference call to discuss the article "Emancipatory Sexuality Education and Sexual Assault Resistance: Does the Former Enhance the Latter?" (2011, Senn, Gee, Thake, Windsor, Ontario).
2013 National Organization for Women Conference
IMPACT Chicago Instructor Martha Thompson was a panelist in the Violence Against Women track of the 2013 National Organization for Women Conference in Chicago. For more about that, see the IMPACT Chicago blog “Addressing Mis-Perceptions About Self-Defense and Feminism".
2013 National Women’s Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF) Self-Defense Instructors Conference and Martial Arts Camp (photo)
IMPACT Chicago instructors Margaret Vimont and Martha Thompson were trainers for the NWMAF Self-Defense Instructors Conference and Martial Arts Camp. Rob Babcock, Bruce Brio, and Ben Ruiz joined Margaret and Martha along with DC IMPACT Instructor and Director Carol Middleton to offer Introduction to IMPACT to camp participants. Class Assistants who were also attending the camp were Deb Mier (Chicago), Patti Fievoli (Ontario), and Katy Mattingly (Michigan).
IMPACT Chicago Instructors Katie Skibbe and Martha Thompson attended the the NWMAF Self-Defense Instructors Conference, learning from other self-defense instructors such as: Shura Gat, Energy Awareness and Self-Defense; Joy Williamson, Teaching Self-Defense to Blind and Visually Impaired People; Carmel Drewes, Understanding and Explaining Trauma to Self-Defense Participants; Kate Webster and Susan Barney, Five Fingers of Self-Defense.
Margaret Vimont offered a session: “From The Beginning Into The Do: Teaching To The Adult Student.”
Martha Thompson was on two panels:
“Does Self-Defense Really Work? Experience, Evidence, and Research” with Darlene DeFour (Hunter College), Jennifer Keller(Stanford), Silke Schultz (MA thesis on self-defense), Lee Sinclair (No Means No Worldwide).
“Working with Men and Boys” with Nancy Lanoue (Thousand Waves), Clara Porter (Prevention, Action, Change), Lee Sinclair (No Means No Worldwide).
National Women’s Martial Arts Federation Self-Defense Instructors Research Reading Club
Martha Thompson joined 10 other self-defense instructors on a 1 hour conference call to discuss the article "Emancipatory Sexuality Education and Sexual Assault Resistance: Does the Former Enhance the Latter?" (2011, Senn, Gee, Thake, Windsor, Ontario).
Monday, October 7, 2013
It's Not a Life Sentence, Henry Rollins
by M. Sophia Newman
Boy meets girl, boy rapes girl, girl has a fabulous life anyway. I won.
Oh, for the love of God.
There have been a million different stories about the Steubenville rape case by now. The facts are well-established. (If you’ve missed them, here they are in review: a group of American high school students at a party hauled an unconscious classmate from place to place, raped her, urinated on her, and filmed themselves laughing at these violations. One boy posted a video about the incident on Youtube, where it went viral. The outcry prompted an investigation, which ended this week with the conviction of two boys, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond. Both will spend a year or more in prison.)
The whole thing has been commented to death by now. Yesterday’s controversy revolved around CNN’s overly sympathetic treatment of the rapists. Countless blog posts and Gawker articles and who knows what all have been written.
Many comment on the leniency of the prison sentences. Famous punk rocker of yesteryear Henry Rollins wrote a blog post that noted this specific injustice at length. Then he added, “I have yet to say anything about the damage to the young woman involved. It is ironic and sad that the person who is going to do a life sentence is her.”
Like many people, I sympathize with the rape victim. And my sympathy makes this comment essential: Rollins' statement is disturbing and false.
Actually, I might sympathize more closely with the rape victim than many people, having lived through violence myself.
Someone raped me when I was 21. Being violated caused me tremendous, heart-shattering fear, like it does for many victims. I wondered how I could possibly live with the knowledge of my rapist’s stark, hideous disdain for me. When I told friends I trusted – asking only that the guy, who we all knew, get some counseling – they stunned me by sending an email to dozens of members of our shared social network, insisting I had lied and I was “ruining [the rapist’s] life.” The disrespect and victim-blaming were roughly similar to some aspects of the events in Steubenville.
Years later, I would read health research that established what I learned firsthand: it is not the rape itself that causes long-lasting trauma, but the victim-blaming that comes afterwards. Being raped was an encounter with something deeply sinister. But being deliberately bullied and denied help precisely because I had encountered this sinister destruction was a uniquely evil act. It implied a downward spiral of victimization awaited me. With deeply ugly memories of rape still ringing in my head, the terror of being treated as even more subhuman made me wish for death.
But I did not die.
Instead, I went to work.
“I want to congratulate you, Sophia,” my social worker told me some years later. “People who get treated like you got treated end up on heroin.”
I didn’t take heroin, nor any drugs at all (although I can see why victims wish to numb their pain). I didn’t have time for that. I was too busy with graduate school.
In my master’s program, I studied violence prevention closely. I also lived in a Zen temple, where I meditated fifteen hours a week. I took self-defense classes, and later helped teach them. I went to counseling sessions faithfully for a year. I worked, in other words, as hard as it was humanly possible to work to heal the brain injury that the rape had caused me. Through relentless effort, I rebuilt my life.
No justice ever came to my rapist. There was no court case, no conviction, no compensation. The people who slandered me publicly have never apologized or acknowledged their wrong-doing. I worked, but society mostly didn't work with me.
But I won anyway.
I had friends who supported me. I found a community of progressive martial artists and self-defense people. I developed a meditation practice I truly love. My brain damage healed while I earned my public health degree, and when I finished, they inducted me into the honor society. Then I won the Fulbright Fellowship – and when I went to the doctor to complete my medical clearance papers, he looked at my health history, said, “You don't have this problem anymore,” and archived those medical records.
I got well. I got my life back. I won completely.
Between the day I got raped and the moment I was officially well, eight years passed. That was much longer than it should have been. I wish I had been helped much earlier and not blamed for the crime my rapist committed.
But here’s the math, Henry Rollins: eight years is not a life sentence.
Actually, rape is not a life sentence for most victims. It is a particularly potent form of violence, and the intense stigma and victim-blaming are why its traumatic effects last so long.
But the reality is that most people who are traumatized are resilient. Most people get better, whether with professional help or the support of their communities. They get well, move on, and often have very good lives. I am living proof of this.
Insisting that the worst five hours of the Steubenville rape victim’s life will degrade all of her entire remaining fifty years is not friendly, and it is not factually accurate. It places additional stigma on the victim by assuming she is irrevocably damaged. It asks that she remain in the prison of rape trauma for far longer than is natural or necessary. It is an unjust imposition on this young woman.
I have faith that the victim in Steubenville will one day be fine. I applaud her for pursuing justice, and I hope this week’s verdicts bring her some relief. I hope she gets all the help she needs.
And for myself, I must insist: I served all the time that I have to serve in the prison of rape trauma and stigma. I worked to earn my liberation, even though I never did anything wrong in the first place. I deserve to be free now.
Really, I already am.
I plan to use my liberty to go back to mostly ignoring Henry Rollins.
UPDATE (March 21, 2013)
When I wrote this article yesterday, I retrieved Henry Rollins' email address from his website, and sent this link, saying, "I can tell from your words that you are sympathetic to the plight of rape survivors. I appreciate that. But I take exception to your remark that the victim in the Steubenville rape case is serving a 'life sentence.'"
Henry himself responded a few hours later. His response was exceedingly kind and respectful, and ended with the line, "Things get better when we stand up to this brutality."
Considering I was directly criticizing a guy who first got famous for his screaming vocals (as the lead singer for the seminal hardcore band Black Flag and a hard rock act called Rollins Band) and for generally being an angry guy, the classy response was rather unexpected and even a little sweet.
It feels so good, in fact, that he made the last sentence of my essay wrong. Since yesterday, I'm not ignoring Henry Rollins much at all. In fact, I've been on a huge Black Flag kick all day. Thanks, Henry.
For more of M. Sophia Newman's writing, check out her blog https://msophianewman.squarespace.com/blog/
Boy meets girl, boy rapes girl, girl has a fabulous life anyway. I won.
Oh, for the love of God.
There have been a million different stories about the Steubenville rape case by now. The facts are well-established. (If you’ve missed them, here they are in review: a group of American high school students at a party hauled an unconscious classmate from place to place, raped her, urinated on her, and filmed themselves laughing at these violations. One boy posted a video about the incident on Youtube, where it went viral. The outcry prompted an investigation, which ended this week with the conviction of two boys, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond. Both will spend a year or more in prison.)
The whole thing has been commented to death by now. Yesterday’s controversy revolved around CNN’s overly sympathetic treatment of the rapists. Countless blog posts and Gawker articles and who knows what all have been written.
Many comment on the leniency of the prison sentences. Famous punk rocker of yesteryear Henry Rollins wrote a blog post that noted this specific injustice at length. Then he added, “I have yet to say anything about the damage to the young woman involved. It is ironic and sad that the person who is going to do a life sentence is her.”
Like many people, I sympathize with the rape victim. And my sympathy makes this comment essential: Rollins' statement is disturbing and false.
Actually, I might sympathize more closely with the rape victim than many people, having lived through violence myself.
Someone raped me when I was 21. Being violated caused me tremendous, heart-shattering fear, like it does for many victims. I wondered how I could possibly live with the knowledge of my rapist’s stark, hideous disdain for me. When I told friends I trusted – asking only that the guy, who we all knew, get some counseling – they stunned me by sending an email to dozens of members of our shared social network, insisting I had lied and I was “ruining [the rapist’s] life.” The disrespect and victim-blaming were roughly similar to some aspects of the events in Steubenville.
Years later, I would read health research that established what I learned firsthand: it is not the rape itself that causes long-lasting trauma, but the victim-blaming that comes afterwards. Being raped was an encounter with something deeply sinister. But being deliberately bullied and denied help precisely because I had encountered this sinister destruction was a uniquely evil act. It implied a downward spiral of victimization awaited me. With deeply ugly memories of rape still ringing in my head, the terror of being treated as even more subhuman made me wish for death.
But I did not die.
Instead, I went to work.
“I want to congratulate you, Sophia,” my social worker told me some years later. “People who get treated like you got treated end up on heroin.”
I didn’t take heroin, nor any drugs at all (although I can see why victims wish to numb their pain). I didn’t have time for that. I was too busy with graduate school.
In my master’s program, I studied violence prevention closely. I also lived in a Zen temple, where I meditated fifteen hours a week. I took self-defense classes, and later helped teach them. I went to counseling sessions faithfully for a year. I worked, in other words, as hard as it was humanly possible to work to heal the brain injury that the rape had caused me. Through relentless effort, I rebuilt my life.
No justice ever came to my rapist. There was no court case, no conviction, no compensation. The people who slandered me publicly have never apologized or acknowledged their wrong-doing. I worked, but society mostly didn't work with me.
But I won anyway.
I had friends who supported me. I found a community of progressive martial artists and self-defense people. I developed a meditation practice I truly love. My brain damage healed while I earned my public health degree, and when I finished, they inducted me into the honor society. Then I won the Fulbright Fellowship – and when I went to the doctor to complete my medical clearance papers, he looked at my health history, said, “You don't have this problem anymore,” and archived those medical records.
I got well. I got my life back. I won completely.
Between the day I got raped and the moment I was officially well, eight years passed. That was much longer than it should have been. I wish I had been helped much earlier and not blamed for the crime my rapist committed.
But here’s the math, Henry Rollins: eight years is not a life sentence.
Actually, rape is not a life sentence for most victims. It is a particularly potent form of violence, and the intense stigma and victim-blaming are why its traumatic effects last so long.
But the reality is that most people who are traumatized are resilient. Most people get better, whether with professional help or the support of their communities. They get well, move on, and often have very good lives. I am living proof of this.
Insisting that the worst five hours of the Steubenville rape victim’s life will degrade all of her entire remaining fifty years is not friendly, and it is not factually accurate. It places additional stigma on the victim by assuming she is irrevocably damaged. It asks that she remain in the prison of rape trauma for far longer than is natural or necessary. It is an unjust imposition on this young woman.
I have faith that the victim in Steubenville will one day be fine. I applaud her for pursuing justice, and I hope this week’s verdicts bring her some relief. I hope she gets all the help she needs.
And for myself, I must insist: I served all the time that I have to serve in the prison of rape trauma and stigma. I worked to earn my liberation, even though I never did anything wrong in the first place. I deserve to be free now.
Really, I already am.
I plan to use my liberty to go back to mostly ignoring Henry Rollins.
UPDATE (March 21, 2013)
When I wrote this article yesterday, I retrieved Henry Rollins' email address from his website, and sent this link, saying, "I can tell from your words that you are sympathetic to the plight of rape survivors. I appreciate that. But I take exception to your remark that the victim in the Steubenville rape case is serving a 'life sentence.'"
Henry himself responded a few hours later. His response was exceedingly kind and respectful, and ended with the line, "Things get better when we stand up to this brutality."
Considering I was directly criticizing a guy who first got famous for his screaming vocals (as the lead singer for the seminal hardcore band Black Flag and a hard rock act called Rollins Band) and for generally being an angry guy, the classy response was rather unexpected and even a little sweet.
It feels so good, in fact, that he made the last sentence of my essay wrong. Since yesterday, I'm not ignoring Henry Rollins much at all. In fact, I've been on a huge Black Flag kick all day. Thanks, Henry.
For more of M. Sophia Newman's writing, check out her blog https://msophianewman.squarespace.com/blog/
Monday, September 30, 2013
Our Senses Are Our First Line of Defense
Our senses are our primary means of connecting to our
environment and our first line of defense when threatened. In the aftermath of
trauma, the story of a survivor’s experience reveals itself as sensory
fragments. By training ourselves and our students to cultivate the use of all
the senses, we are better prepared to respond to danger and also more
resilient.
When we talk about helping people “trust their instincts” we
are talking about the development of sensory literacy and energy awareness, the
ability to recognize and respond to subtle body cues essential for survival.
Physiological responses happen immediately. They are pre-verbal. In
self-defense, we want to be able to interrupt uncomfortable or dangerous
situations early. By practicing tools to build energetic and sensory awareness,
we can do this more quickly and more effectively.
In the case of trauma, when we bring awareness to
unconscious, non-verbal sensory cues and feeling states (images, sensations,
emotions, etc.) and find language to describe them, we are helping the right
and left hemispheres come back on-line. We
are helping people make meaning of previously un-integrated experiences. This
makes it easier to manage difficult sensations and emotions and to take
effective action. For this reason, when we do boundary exercises, it is
important to ask people to notice the physical cues that indicate boundaries
are being breached and then describe them - “How do you know when someone is
standing too close, or moving too fast?” -
(i.e. - stomach clenching, body bracing, holding breath, changes in
visual field, etc.). Becoming more conscious of body signals and learning to
verbalize them helps to overcome some of the freeze response associated with
trauma and strengthens the mind-body connection. Embodied awareness helps us
make healthier choices in general because we can more easily recognize and move
towards things that are life-affirming.
In “Why Cops Don’t Believe Rape Victims,” Rebecca Ruiz
reports on recent studies in neurobiology and trauma to help us better
understand the effects of traumas like sexual assault. The research highlights
the fact that victim-survivors often have fragmented memories of sensory
details, which often contributes to them being disbelieved. Victims have
difficulty recalling important parts of traumatic experiences and providing a
coherent, linear narrative precisely
because they were victims of trauma, not because they are making things up.
Brain science can also help explain why somatic therapies –
approaches that work with the senses – such as touch, taste, smell, and visceral
reactions, can be more effective than cognitive therapies alone in helping
people heal from trauma. With extreme stress, the pre-frontal cortex,
particularly the speech and language centers, become impaired or shut down, while
areas of the right side, which affect emotions and arousal, light up. When
traumatic memories surface, rational thinking is essentially “hijacked” by the
survival-oriented parts of the brain and nervous system, and is no longer as readily
accessible. It becomes difficult to process information. If the two sides of
the brain are not working together, the story will be chaotic and confused. A person
may be flooded with sensations and emotions with no way to make sense of them.
Or, the story may make logical sense but lack the emotional charge one would
normally associate with painful events.
The symptoms described are also true of torture survivors.
Asylum officers receive some specialized training in how to recognize symptoms
of trauma and PTSD which might include fragmented memories, flat affect, and
dissociative states. Well-trained officers are likely to elicit sensory
memories to help substantiate a victim’s story. Police officers need to have
this kind of training as well.
Diane Long has
been teaching sex-positive self-defense for schools, shelters and social
service agencies for over 20 years. A Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner and
Nationally Certified Massage Therapist (NCBTMB), she has worked as a French
interpreter at The Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis for 10 years.
Diane currently serves on the Self-Defense Leadership Committee of the National
Women’s Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF).
Monday, September 23, 2013
IMPACT Chicago Board Member Katie Kramer in Carlisle Kentucky News
A Carlisle Kentucky newspaper featured IMPACT graduate and IMPACT Chicago Board member Katie Kramer in a recent article “Carlisle Native Aids in Ending Violence Against Women.”The article appears below.
Two of five women have experienced at least one type of abuse or violence in their lifetime according to The Commonwealth Fund 1998 Survey of Women's Health. A self-defense organization known as IMPACT Chicago is working to end this violence and Carlisle County native, Katie Kelley Kramer, is part of the effort.
Kramer, who moved to Chicago with her husband after college, decided to take her first self-defense course with IMPACT Chicago three years ago. The organization teaches boundary setting and self-defense to women and focuses on the natural areas of strengths in a woman’s body. A lead female instructor facilitates the classes and one or more suited male instructors accompany her. The fact that the males are suited, enables the women in the class to learn by using full force hits and kicks. The style of teaching allows women to learn by watching instructor examples, drilling the learned moves, and acting out scenarios, which is key to muscle memory.
After completing the core course, Kramer completed two advances classes, one that focuses on defense against an armed assailant and the other, which teaches defense against multiple assailants. Kramer continued to be amazed at the work of this organization and the freedom and confidence that exuded from the women who graduated each class. Since the first class in 2010, Kramer has volunteered as an assistant in classes, helped to plan the 25th anniversary celebration, and served on the hiring committee for new leadership.
In December, Kramer was welcomed as a new IMPACT board member and is looking forward to helping the organization live out the mission of “ending violence and building a non-violent world in which all people can live safely and with dignity.”
For more information about self-defense and IMPACT Chicago visit: www.impactchicago.org. Information about other chapters, visit: www.impactselfdefense.org.
Katie Kelley Kramer is the daughter of Steve and Melanie Kelley of Bardwell and the granddaughter of Martha Wilson of Wickliffe.
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