The Tree of Life: an intervention with adolescent victims sex abuse

The Tree of Life intervention consists of using the parts of a tree as a metaphor to represent the different aspects of our life. The use of this metaphor invites the children to tell their story in an active process of construction, reconstruction and continuous revision of their abilities, their beliefs, their values, their dreams and hopes for the future and their relationships with the important people in their lives. To this end, each participant in the group draws his or her own tree and the therapist indicates how to cover each of the parts of the tree; subsequently a space for conversation is opened on the aspects mentioned above with the aim of giving meaning and significance to their lives and their relationships. The intervention will be developed in 8 weekly group sessions lasting an hour and a half over 4 distinct stages: drawing the tree and talking about each of the parts (4 sessions); the forest of life (1 session); the storms of life (1 session); ceremony and celebration (2 sessions). The groups will be formed by a maximum of 12 participants and the therapist of reference of each group will lead the intervention. The therapist is a psychologist. a) First stage: Drawing of the Tree of Life (4 sessions) - Roots: they represent our origins, our ancestors. - Earth: represents the present moment of our lives. - Core: knowledge, skills, values and beliefs. - Branches: dreams and hopes for the future - Leaves: important people in our lives. - Fruits: the gifts that these people have given us that are related to aspects of care, help, support, affection... - Other spontaneous drawings on the tree itself that represent the gifts that the participants have given to the important people in their lives. During the process of drawing and describing The Tree of Life, questions are asked in each part of the participants' story to generate knowledge of themselves, in which they identify what is valuable to them, what they know how to do, what they enjoy, important relationships and what they dream of in the future. b) Second stage: The Forest of Life (1 session). A safety island is built that allows participants to stand in a different place and from a different position. Participants share their trees and their history individually and then as a group. All the drawings are placed on a wall and participants are invited to write words of support on the other participants' trees. In this part, a safe space is created to talk about the experience of sexual abuse in the next stage. The island of security refers to the construction of a safe territory of identity in which the person understands the response to the experience of abuse as a sign of strength and resilience, instead of a sign of weakness, shame, guilt, etc., so that he/she rebuilds his/her internal belief system about trust in basic human relationships, as well as affective bonds that offer security and protection; consequently, it provides a feeling of control over his/her behaviours and emotions in difficult situations, avoiding re-victimization. c) Third stage: The Storms of Life (1session). In this stage, the stories of actions, interactions, meanings, and knowledge that are part of the response that until now had not been told to the experience of sexual abuse become visible; People are not passive recipients of trauma (Denborough, 2008). The conversation in this stage is group, so that the recovery of the knowledge that the participants have in their ways of facing abuse is shared as a group. These shared responses generate what is called local knowledge in narrative practice (White and Epston, 1993), the richness of the lived experience. d) Fourth stage: Ceremony and Celebration (2 sessions). This stage aims to recognize their stories of resistance, skills, and dexterity. In the original design (Ncube and Denborough, 2006), certificates were awarded to each participant in which their skills and knowledge were recognized. In this project we are also going to use the creation of a Collective Document with the aim of strengthening the reconnection with the group and creating a feeling of belonging. The strategies used to monitor compliance with the intervention are the attendance checklist of the participants at the sessions and a record per session covered by the therapists with information regarding: number of trees covered and responses in each of the parts, degree of participation and interest in the sessions, difficulties observed, other observations of interest.