The Development and Evolution of Rebonding of the Body: Its Application to Women's substance Abuse Treatment

In 1982, while I was Head Nurse, I worked with the staff and physicians of the Child and Family Unit to develop a program named “Rebonding of the Body “to meet the needs of the number of children coming into our care who have been sexually abused. In 1984, I worked with Adeline O’Gorman, art therapist and Connie Frey, movement therapist to modify the program for adult women in the community. This program and its related research formed the biases for the thesis for my MSc. During that program, Adeline O’Gorman was my direct supervisor and is also the artist for the program’s logo and medallion associated with the program. Over the next few years Adeline and I continued to offer the program to the women in Victoria BC up to and including 1987. During that same time, I also modified the program to service adolescent male and female clients as well as adult male clients. Over the years of offering this and similar programs the interrelationship between trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder and substance abuse became prominent. While I was living, and working in Saudi Arabia I also trained Andrea Anstiss, not only as a program leader, but also to train other women leaders. Her work and adaptions are covered in a chapter of this book. In September 2003, I returned to Canada and started studying at the University of Western Ontario where Dr. Marilyn Ford-Gilboe was my advisor and I became a research assistant on the national five-year longitudinal study called, “The Women’s Health Effects Study”, which documented the health effects of intimate partner violence. This work further convinced me of the relationship between PTSD and substance use. In my dissertation of 2009, this was a focus of my study and I have included some of the sections from that work to provide understanding for the persons involved in this work. That work in its entirety is included in the text, “Women, Trauma and Alcohol Dependency: Connections and Disconnections in Alcohol Treatment for Women.” Lambert Academic Publishing.2009. Sections from that work are included in this text. This work I believe underscores the importance the trauma care being integrated into substance abuse care and it’s the basis for me to recommend the application of Rebonding of the Body program into a substance treatment center for women. I want to acknowledge all the individuals who have trusted their therapists and this technique and especially the research participants without which I would have little to share with you.