FAQ

The Institute for Healing of Memories-North America seeks to contribute to lasting individual and collective healing that makes possible a more peaceful and just world.

The HOM team members are skilled facilitators who have undergone a uniform training experience and have undergone a structured vetting program in order to build on the interpersonal skills, prior training and professions they represent. the program itself is neither therapy nor counseling and does not use that language or methodology. HOM offers simple, tested tools for the facilitating and first step in the healing of the moral or spiritual injury that arise from grief, loss or any number of traumatic events experienced by the participants. The facilitators structure the invitation to share in a way that each participant has the choice to move at their own level of comfort through their own experiences. The HOM process guides participants toward the use of simple skills in order to communicate and resolve issues in an enhanced and effective manner.

HOM creates a space for you to speak about yourself and your issues and concerns in a safe, confidential setting with trained, experienced facilitators. You are guided into opportunities for sharing that have been successfully used in HOM settings for over 20 years. Each person is given an opportunity to share and listen and to take from it what they need to restore, heal, affirm or re-examine their own attitudes and feelings and retain what is life giving and discard what is destructive.

HOM Zoom Support Calls provide healthcare workers with a safe, supportive, nonjudgmental, confidential space to share feelings, story, experiences, and to begin to heal past painful experiences, trauma and moral injury. Each Gathering is 90 minutes and will be held in groups of 6 to 8 people. Participants find support, healing, increased trust, empathy, hope, relief, reassurance and sense of belonging. These facilitated Calls are based in Healing of Memories methodology, developed in post-apartheid South Africa at the Trauma Center for Victims of Torture and Violence, and has been utilized around the world in many different contexts for over 20 years.

For all healthcare workers, and for those experiencing:

• Feeling fear, depressed, shame, guilt, anger, remorse, grief, frustration, and/or a deep    moral/ethical dilemma over what you had been unable to do, or what you personally witnessed.
• Making decisions and taking actions that were morally challenging to you
• Witnessing people dying alone and not being able to help, or having to be a surrogate holding space for people to die without loved ones
• Decisions you had to make or could not make on behalf of patients
• Losing patients, friends, colleagues, loved ones
• Living in fear of being infected or infecting loved ones
• Betrayal by the system that was designed to protect you
• Feeling hurt by the actions of your community in not taking the needs of healthcare workers into consideration

It is a simple role: we ask that you speak about yourself and for yourself, not others, and speak only to the extent that you feel comfortable and safe in doing so. When and if you are ready to discuss difficult memories, we ask that you also share the emotional impact. We encourage offering support and validation for others by honoring their stories and recognizing the way to do that is being aware that each person must and is capable of doing their own healing and the only person we can “fix” is ourselves.

If you are seeing a therapist ask if this HOM support and healing experience is a helpful adjunct to your ongoing therapy.
If you are overly dependent on alcohol, medications or drugs to get through the day, we suggest you get help for that first.
If you have experienced a personal, professional, emotional tsunami named CoVid19 and need a safe, structured environment in which to begin to heal the moral, personal and professional indignity it brought into your life, sign up for a HOM Zoom Support Call.