94 Recovery skills 2( continued)
TO THE TRAINER
PART II: THE TRAINING
Aim. To use role play to integrate exercise skills.
The group has practised different exercises that help to calm or re-energise a survivor who is dysregulated.
A survivor is dysregulated when her emotional responses are poorly regulated; her emotional state is labile and she has mood swings. This often occurs when a person is overwhelmed( hyperactivated) or very low( hypo-activated), or swings between both states. For more information, see The window of tolerance on pages 72-73.
To fully integrate these skills, helpers need to practise them, as they would with survivors. Role play is one way to do this.
ROLE PLAY EXERCISE
Role play 5. Calming triggered survivors, energising under-active survivors.
Divide the participants into pairs and ask one to play the Helper and the other a survivor. Ask them to practise some of the exercises. Invite the participant who plays the Survivor to pretend to be in a triggered or a passive state.
At the end, make sure to tell the participants to come out of their roles. Ask them to brush off the person they were acting, and to say aloud:“ I am no longer the Helper or the Survivor, I am [ me ]”.
DISCUSSION
Discussion. Sharing experience after Role Play Exercise 5. Questions might include:
• What kind of grounding exercise did you use and why?
• Did you observe any reactions? What kind?
• With a human rights-based approach in mind, what would you do if a survivor is not willing to participate?