Why Are Cafés So Great? – Cafés and Healing Trauma
Welcome to the 3rd “Why Are Cafés So Great” column. This month the subject is Cafés and healing trauma.
Trauma, especially trauma that is experienced in early childhood, can have a significant and lasting impact on an individual's emotional, cognitive, and social development. It can disrupt the natural progression of attachment, self-concept, and understanding of the world and interpersonal dynamics. As a result, this can set unhealthy patterns of relationships. Those who have experienced trauma as a young child often have:
Difficulty making secure attachments: Children who experience trauma may develop insecure attachment styles: avoid closeness, fearing rejection or believing they can't trust others. Children might become clingy and anxious about relationships, fearing abandonment. They may display unpredictable behaviors, feeling both a desire for intimacy and a fear of it due to past unpredictability in care.
Boundary Issues: Children exposed to trauma, especially abuse, might not learn appropriate boundaries, leading them to tolerate inappropriate behavior or violate others' boundaries.
Low Self-Worth: Trauma can lead to feelings of worthlessness or self-blame. As a result, individuals might enter and stay in relationships where they are undervalued or mistreated.
Difficulty Trusting Others: Early betrayal or harm from caregivers or close ones can establish a pattern where the individual finds it hard to trust others, expecting betrayal or hurt.
Hypervigilance: Constantly being on the lookout for threats can make it challenging to form relaxed and open relationships.
Poor Emotional Regulation: Trauma can impede the development of emotional self-regulation. This can lead to difficulties in managing emotions in interpersonal situations, potentially resulting in explosive arguments, withdrawal, or other maladaptive interactions.
Difficulty Reading Social Cues: Childhood trauma can impair one's ability to accurately read and interpret social cues, leading to misunderstandings and conflicts.
Over-Dependency: In search of the safety and security they lacked in childhood, some trauma survivors might become overly dependent on their partners, leading to an imbalanced relationship dynamic.
Difficulty with Intimacy: Due to past betrayals or violations, there can be a deep-seated fear of becoming vulnerable again, leading to difficulties in forming deep and intimate connections with others.
Fear of Abandonment: This can lead to behaviors like clinging, testing the relationship, or even pushing the other person away preemptively to avoid the anticipated rejection.
The reality is that whatever relationship dynamics happen in the context of home with people who say that they love you or who are supposed to take care of you, becomes a template for relationships in the future. Interpersonal trauma in families and intimate relationships, when it is all that an individual has known as a child, is bound to be repeated in other relationships because it is what is known as normal.
Traumatic events at any point in life, can shatter an individual's sense of safety, trust, and their view of the world, leading to feelings distrust. Not being able to trust leads to isolation and isolation leads to despair.
So … Where’s the hope? Where’s the healing? How can the cycle be disrupted?
Interpersonal trauma is healed through corrective social experiences. It can’t be resolved any other way. And all the natural consequences of experiencing trauma listed above can make it quite difficult to have those corrective social experiences.
This is where Cafés can come in. Part of the magic of Cafés is that we create space that feels safe and has clear boundaries — quickly and effectively — through a set of simple Agreements and table hosts who are trained to supportively and respectfully uphold them. This way of interacting according to the Agreements at first may feel odd, different, and stilted, but it is the “container” for Cafés.
These Agreements are:
Listen attentively, don’t interrupt
Speak from your own experience, use “I” statements
No judgments, positive or negative
Do not give advice
Confidentiality - what happens in the Café, stays in the Café
Full presence - no electronic distractions
Allow participants who may not have very well-developed social / emotional skills to practice interacting with others in non-conflictual, respectful, non-judgmental ways. As participants experience being able to talk (or not talk) without being shut down or forced to answer when they don’t want to, as they experience being understood at a deep level by peers who feel with them but don’t invade their personal space or try to fix them, they learn by experiencing that they can be validated and accepted as they are. They have an experience of healthy relating, which allows vigilance to be relaxed and opens a pathway to trust. Having others witness and affirm, even silently, tacitly, is an important step in the healing process.
In Cafés, as participants are listened to deeply by others, they also are able to hear themselves. No one is judging. No one is minimizing. Everyone’s experience is understood as their experience and the premise is that it is valid. Any power differentials due to income, professional position, etc. are suspended: everyone is equal at the Café table. The underlying assumption is that everyone has wisdom, and everyone is capable of both helping others and helping themselves just by connecting with their deepest selves, their values, their inner compass and speaking their truth. Another premise is that the whole spectrum of emotion is welcome: people laugh at Cafés, they cry at Cafés and the collective holds space for all of that (with a helping professional available for those who need more in the moment than the Café context itself can provide). The questions discussed at Café tables are designed to be both generative and appreciative, which means the arc of the conversations leans toward the positive.
Cafés were created by parents, for parents to build protective factors including social support. Social support reduces isolation: people who participate regularly in Cafés, become familiar with and connect to the structure of Cafés, which is always the same, like a ritual. They come to know that there are people who care, listen, and understand. Social support can bolster resilience, allowing trauma survivors to bounce back from adversity more effectively. A strong social network can provide both emotional and practical support during challenging times.
In sum, social relationships can be a cornerstone in the healing journey after trauma. Forming healthy social relationships is usually challenging for trauma survivors. Cafés are places to practice relating to and being a safe place for others. Cafés are places where there are understanding, compassionate, and safe individuals who provide each other with the necessary support to process, integrate, and ultimately move forward from their traumatic experiences.
By now I’ve made the case that Cafés are a super support group – next blog I will cover how Cafés go beyond being simply a support group.