ABSTRACT
Room to Heal is a therapeutic community for survivors of torture and other human rights abuses based in London in the UK. In this account, written collaboratively by Members and staff from the community, the core features of the approach are laid out. Room to Heal services include group therapy, socio-legal casework, residential retreats, community gardening and communal activities. Above all, Room to Heal offers its Members a place to reconnect with each other in a broader therapeutic community environment as a means of healing. This deliberate nurturing of community and connection is contrasted with the isolating and dehumanising impacts of trauma and the experiences of asylum-seeking. Challenges to building and running the community, as well as areas for development, are explored. Interwoven with feedback and quotes from community Members, the chapter centres around the importance of relationships, common humanity, attention to power dynamics, and most of all, the idea of the practice of community.
