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The Butterfly Woman. Her good life.
SAID ALOUD
The Butterfly Woman. Her good life.
Aim. To introduce the Butterfly Woman story and the five focus areas.
PART II: THE TRAINING
Trainer. I will now tell you a story that will continue like a thread through the training. It is about the Butterfly Woman. Listen – and notice what happens to the Butterfly Woman’ s thoughts, feelings, breathing, heart and body.
The story is a metaphor
Remember that the Butterfly Woman story is a metaphor. Using it, we can talk about victims of trauma and their survival in a manner that distances us from the terrible experiences described. This distancing permits us to look more calmly at the Woman’ s suffering and her reactions, and understand that she reacts understandably to the violence to which she is exposed. It allows us to explain how trauma affects a person’ s life – her thoughts, feelings, breathing, body and heart.
In many cultures, storytelling is commonly used to pass on knowledge and wisdom. Such stories are constructed to enable the storyteller to share unspeakable or difficult content. The Butterfly Woman endures great hardship. We understand the psychology of her trauma without speaking about it directly. This is also important wherever rape is culturally taboo. Through the story, women can indirectly identify, reflect on and speak about their own experience. In this way, the story can be healing.
Throughout, therefore, remember that the story is used figuratively, to illustrate what happens.
We will start at the beginning, when life is good for the Butterfly Woman and she is healthy and safe, because we want to understand what is taken away from her, and what changes when she is assaulted. It is also important to know that she has good memories to which she can reconnect later.