ABSTRACT
The twelve-session group course starts with basic coping skills (first four sessions) and progresses to focus on relationship, including the self–self relationship, relationship with past and between different aspects of the self (sub-personalities). First four sessions are: Session 1: Mindfulness; Session 2: Managing your body's safety system; Session 3: Behavioural Activation; and Session 4: You and your emotions. The course becomes gradually more personally demanding as it progresses. Usually the bonding within the group helps to contain this. Experiencing emotions mindfully is a way to break them down by seeing them as an event in the body – and so give them less power. Individuals who have been emotionally avoidant for a long time will be invited to face their feelings. Inevitably, this will be challenging for many, and so a check-in round is introduced into each session from now on, where each group member is asked individually how they are feeling.
