"Telling one's story" in an incest survivors group

This article discusses the technical considerations that contribute to making "telling one's story" in an incest survivors group a ritual of active mastery leading to psychological growth. Survivors approach the task of sharing memories with a variety of wishes and fears that can emerge as powerful group transference paradigms. These paradigms, while they vividly illuminate the survivor's past and present interpersonal expectations, can threaten to derail the telling experience. Actively interpreted, however, the group transference aspects of the telling experience can yield valuable insights that become the focus for the remainder of the survivor's group treatment. This article details the process of preparing the individual survivor and the group for the process of telling (and listening) and the subsequent task of working through the insights derived from the telling experience. Two case examples demonstrate these techniques.