ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a concrete example of a small psychiatric unit struggling to answer some questions with a view to providing suggestions for an approach to any community searching for the means to end violence. Trauma-based treatment, as offered by Sanctuary, is comprised of a number of specific modalities of individual and group therapies, all intended to help the individual and community address issues of violence and recovery. The Sanctuary programme seems to insist upon strict adherence to a code of non-violence and to exercise a dogmatic and judgemental approach to behaviours involving violation of these tenets, so be it. Too frequently, Sanctuary patients have described backgrounds in which no clear messages or boundaries had been established or maintained. Most of all, it requires a belief that being subjected to violence is not, in itself, a condemnation to living a life of recreating similar violence.
