ABSTRACT
The process of treating traumatized persons always begins in safety, because, at its heart, trauma is a disintegration of a person’s sense of safety. The quality of the therapeutic relationship, including the manner of witnessing, is a crucial element to the context of safety. A safe therapeutic context within which a person’s story is told changes the context of that story to one of greater safety, that is, not as traumatic. Especially for victims of interpersonal trauma, the notion of a “safe place” often conjures instead a “secured place” with guard dogs and riflemen or tigers. The need for safety heightens and diminishes throughout the therapy. The therapy involves helping the client close the gaps and find an ending to the stories of the traumatic incidents, and change the traumatic moral and theme that has infected the person’s life story.
