ABSTRACT
When therapists work with survivors of emotional, sexual, and physical abuse, whether in groups or individually, they frequently find themselves overwhelmed by the raw and powerful stories they hear. Gentle crying is not an unusual event. There are many different kinds of tears that are a normal part of doing therapy with severely damaged trauma survivors. The author describes some of these different types of tears. Sometimes a woman's story, whether told individually or in a group, is so overwhelmingly sad that it literally pulls the tears from the therapist's eyes. Tears of anger and despair seem to come from a different place within the therapist than those of compassion and sadness. Sometimes, a woman's words reach out and touch therapists' own experience. Crying is a form of bearing witness to the pain of others. Therapist's tears may be a glimmer of validation to a woman who has rarely experienced empathy to her pain.
