Not all days are good days.

In the face of adversity what choices do we have? Do we lose ourselves, feeling overwhelmed and helpless, perhaps escaping into displacement activity to avoid feeling pain… or crumble in the face of adversity? You wouldn’t be blamed for these natural human reactions. Or do you stand and face what is going on, taking action in the best way you can, knowing you are doing your best?

When the chips are down who do you choose to be? How would you wish to be remembered? What is your legacy?

Small scale or on a world level – it’s when there is injustice around that the real colours of people show. What can you do today to make your immediate world even a little better for others?

When organising the choice of the next BSCAH talk three months prior, it was never anticipated that the subject of grief would hit us so close to home. At the BSCAH talk about grief with key international speakers we ran in early March one of our members raised the issue of what we could do as a hypnosis society to help the traumatised people of Ukraine. As a result of this the whole of the International Society of Hypnosis (ISH) ‘coffee morning’ meeting (evening our time) led by Mark Jensen a few days later on zoom, was devoted to this topic.

ISH has formed an inclusive committee that incorporates representatives from different societies to “Build Bridges of Support” to traumatised people in need. 

Dr Kathleen Long, President of the European Society of Hypnosis will act as Co-chair to the committee.  Our representative is Dr Gillian Smith from Northern Counties who is also a Trustee of BSCAH. Dr Woltemade Hartman (South Africa) has offered to manage therapeutic support, Dr Enayat Shahidi (Iran) is organising a trauma webinar series, Cecelia Fabre (Mexico) will contribute to the marketing.  The Polish institute with Kris Klajs is already providing training and support for victims of war. Kasia Mirska is also connected to professionals and students that can assist with translation.   Nadine Hartman will be our youth member.  Supportive administrative and other roles will be fulfilled by Julia Grasshoff (Germany), Corrine Williams (AICHP Australia) and Hanle Marais (MEISA South Africa).

  Aims
Firstly, to provide support to victims in need..

Secondly, to develop an ISH crisis and intervention response plan, with resources, training, intervention plan/strategies and support for health care workers and victims of war or crisis.

Focus of Support
The following aspects may need to be discussed, clarified, formulated and connected to action plans.  Themes here would be awareness, respect and sensitivity for different cultures, nationalities, and being inclusive with support. Please let me know if there are any other aspects that may be important to include.

There are two broad categories to support:

1. Support for Health Care Workers

We need to…

1.1 identify healthcare workers, organisation etc working with victims of war 

1.2 establish needs of health care workers (? possibility of online survey to individuals, perhaps Google forms etc).

1.3 provide hypnosis/trauma training (need to identify and develop trauma training opportunities).

1.4 provide supervision/support for healthcare workers (establish a database for therapists to access).

1.5 identify, curate, and make available written and audio material (e.g., hypnotic scripts, books, other resources) 

1.6 translate into original languages. (translators are needed)

1.7 create awareness of what is available through conventional and social media marketing

1.8 Explore multiple platforms: Zoom, LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, 

Support for Victims and Refugees

We need to…

1.1 identify healthcare workers providing therapeutic and other services to victims of war

1.2 identify other healthcare workers (from other countries) that are willing to give time to victims of war

1.3 develop a referral database that victims can access or connect with therapists (Wollie and Hanle)

1.4 establish the needs of refugees (could be age specific, children, teens, adults, the elderly, mothers, war veterans etc)

1.5 provide free hypnosis/trauma therapy to victims/refugees

1.5 identify, curate, and make available written material, audio and video recordings (e.g., hypnotic scripts, books, other resources) 

1.6 translate into original languages.

1.7 create awareness of what is available through conventional and social media marketing

1.8 Explore multiple platforms: Zoom, LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and even TikTok  (thanks to my daughter;)

1.9 Organise resources to focus on certain developmental periods, for example children, teens etc or specific groups, for example mothers

Future:

Consider making resources available in an app that is easily accessible on smartphones and perhaps consider finding funding for such a project.

Other Options and Resources:

• AICHP Online Ego State Therapy for Trauma (full sponsorships available for healthcare workers from countries affected by war).  The EST training starts at the end of March 2022, is a comprehensive trauma training (6×3-day workshops, 18 days) and will be from 5am to 10h30 CET.  The training focuses on working with Ego States in hypnosis but includes the latest somatic approaches and the polyvagal theory in working with trauma and trauma responses. 
• Dr Enayat Shahidi has offered to organise a weekly trauma webinar series on Wednesdays from 18:00-20:00 CET that will be free for participants affected by war.
• Kata and Julie Linden have offered to present hypnosis/trauma workshops/training and Kata has indicated that regular free supervision/invision session are already available (Contact: silva1@gmx.net)
• Kata suggested invision sessions facilitated by various hypnosis/trauma specialists to happen at specific times using a recurrent ISH Zoom connection
• Karen Olness has provided access to the comfort kit for refugee children and has given permission for it to be translated into Ukrainian, possibly Russian and other languages.
• Support Kris Klajs/Karsia Mirska and the Polish institute, already supporting Ukrainians, with resources and opportunities. (They conducted and published a recording of the meeting inspired by the imaginative-trance work of Milton H. Erickson and micro-movements of M. Feldenkrais (in polish by Iwona Woźniakowska) and organize free of charge workshops for therapists. They also organize free of charge psychological support for those who suffer (https://www.p-i-e.pl/pomoc-psychologiczna) and are preparing new audio recordings. They have these in Polish but are translating them and hope to have a Ukrainian version very soon).
• ISH COVID-19 resources: https://www.ishhypnosis.org/category/covid19/ 
• BSCAH has various free resources on https://www.bscah.com/covid-19-resources
  
  So lots going on….
  Hope is the candle that lights the way in the darkness.
  Stay focused, my friends.
  
  Rashmi Chury & Ann Williamson