Safe Space offers unique therapeutic and training resources to clients, trainee counsellors and volunteers.
Our counsellors are a wide-ranging team, all trained in trauma, all committed to developing the skills they have to enable recovery and growth. They attend seminars and supervision, both 1-1 and in groups, to share their knowledge and support each others’ work.
We are lucky to have a multi-cultural team, which has included Urdu, Lithuanian, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, French, German and Greek speakers.
We are also proud to have offered our clients the possibility of taking part in specialist research projects with Edinburgh University:
Not only did these projects make a contribution to the research literature in the future of complex trauma, but they were also described as a truly therapeutic experience for the clients who took part.
In 2013, clients at Safe Space were offered the opportunity to take part in the UK pilot for Fara McAfee’s Becoming Safely Embodied group, the first of its kind to be developed in the experiential learning of self regulation skills for trauma survivors.
It was highly successful, and intended to become a feature of safe Space provision. A second delivery of this group was interrupted by Fara’s sudden death in 2014, and her wisdom and generous spirit was deeply grieved by those who had learned so much from her presence.
Eimear McKay (2012):
An exploration of explicit and implicit emotion in adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse
The study compared basic emotions and psychopathology in a sample of CSA (Childhood Sexual abuse) survivors (n=26) with a sample of individuals who reported that they had not experienced childhood trauma (NCT), but who were receiving therapy within an adult mental health psychology service (NCT; n=25). The study also explored “implicit” disgust self-concept relative to happiness in these two samples.
The findings suggested that the survivors of CSA experienced higher levels of negative emotions, lower happiness and significantly higher scores on psychopathology than the NCT group. However, there was no significant difference observed between self-reported coping or regulation strategies. Disgust is prominent in the emotion profile of CSA survivors. The implicit concept of self-disgust (measured using an Implicit Association Task) was not found to significantly correlate with self-reported disgust, which may indicate that these are separate processes. Explicit self-disgust was associated with psychopathology. Clinical implications of the findings highlight the importance of emotion informed case conceptualisation and therapeutic techniques matched to the route of emotion.
Sensate devices are offered to clients to complement their counselling journey at Safe Space.
The physiological influence of Sensate on vagus nerve function and nervous system activity is well documented online and independently reviewed for its relaxing and calming effects.
Find out about the beginnings, conception and continuing implementation of our study which aims to be one step in publicising the benefits more widely to others who may benefit in a similar way.
Safe Space provides access to a wide range of trauma training, with an annual CPD programme including in-person workshops and online world-class therapists.