My Experience at FITS

Posted by Tian Dayton, Ph.D. on May 03, 2016

My mind is filled with pleasant recollections of my time spent in Salt Lake in this very unique conference. The atmosphere created by the conference hosts felt alive with learning, I enjoyed going to other’s presentations as much as presenting myself.

My own contribution to the conference centered around RTR. Relational Trauma Repair (RTR) is an experiential model for treating relational trauma. I understood early on in my career, that presenting at conferences on psychodrama alone frustrated as much as it taught people. Although they liked what they saw, they recognized that they needed more training than they may wish to get to do it well. I was giving them nothing that they could incorporate into their programming. That is what inspired my approach to experiential group processes. I sometimes remember the decades of trial and error, the experimentation that slowly led to RTR. It is simple today, but it has taken an entire career to create. The Living Stage is the first place that I published what are now contributing parts of the RTR. I remember the years of wracking my brain, of bringing new material and approaches into my groups to experiment with and in community refining them. In retrospect, it feels like a long, happy, and collaborative process. JL Moreno, the father of psychodrama, sociometry, and group psychotherapy said “by the group they were wounded, by the group they shall be healed”. RTR is a group process that is designed to sit inside existing treatment programs, clinic, or outpatient groups. It is a structured, psycho-educational process that offers many incremental moments of sharing, connection, listening, and healing. It teaches about the issues involved in relational trauma as it heals by connecting group members to each other and teaching skills of emotional literacy and self-regulation. It is a fluid, relational process that facilitated engagement and bonding.

I was brought to the FITS conference to share RTR. One image that speaks to the general atmosphere of the conference was that of around 130 or so people all on their feet. The entire group in other words participated, they all wanted to experience and learn. Something in the atmosphere turned that on, it inspired a desire to explore new ideas. It felt like a community of friends, a like-minded group sharing knowledge.

RTR includes:
• A user-friendly Therapist’s Guide with the experiential process that can be adapted to any group or population,
• A Recovering from Trauma Workbook for each client, that has creative journaling processes that correspond to the group exercises (or can be used independently)
• Guided imageries that teach the skills of emotional literacy and regulation.