´I spent 7 months with Lucas in the hospital totally on my own,´  Silvia began.  ´I would cry to my mother on the phone that it was too much, that I was too tired, saying that I wanted to leave the hospital but nobody let me leave.´  ´I was told he had down´s syndrome, that he had a hole in his stomach, that he couldn´t breathe without a machine and I had to stay with him for months and months without leaving the hospital.´ ´I didn´t see my one year old daughter for months on end.  I just stayed on my own in the hospital.´  Her tight tears were clenched in a quiet anger.

Each of us in the close circle hung on her words – the twenty one year old mother with her three year old son who had also spent many nights and weeks in hospital as they diagnosed and treated his severe heart problem, the couple whose child had a rare genetic disease that has left her severely disabled and with a short life expectancy,  the volunteers who struggle with their own miscarriages and family separations and life challenges, the arts-and-crafts coordinator who spent a month in intensive care with an aneurism when 6 months pregnant and me too, remembering my short time in hospital with Alastair with a shudder.     Each one of us trying to make sense of what life has thrown at us and those around us. 

Welcome to Community Therapy -  a technique we have begun to use in our work together with the families this year.  This is a technique that was developed by a doctor in the North East of Brazil twenty years ago and is now being adopted nationwide to provide opportunities for communities of people to come together, share their experiences, learn from the experiences of others and create and strengthen the bonds within these groups.   I have been doing a course over the last year to become a community therapist to bring this powerful technique to the NGO.

There are some simple rules – you can´t give advice, can´t give sermons, can´t make judgments on others, you focus on what you have done to overcome difficulties and always, always speak in the first person.  And jokes, popular sayings and songs are encouraged, alleviating sharp pain with sudden humour and lightness. 

The technique is based on the belief that we all have similar problems, similar fears and that by listening to others´ experiences we realize that we are not alone and by hearing the ways other´s used to overcome their difficulties, we can find keys to overcome our own suffering. 

Silvia continued through her tears.   ´I don´t usually let people see me cry´ she said ´but these tears are of happiness, not sadness now – he is out of the hospital, he can breathe on his own, I am back with my husband,  things are getting better for us ..´ 

Ana, the co-facilitator directed her gently ´Silvia, what did you do to overcome all of this, how did you get through it?´

Silvia didn´t hesitate. ´Positive Thinking´ she stated strongly.  ´I was on my knees for hours in the toilet cubicle, crying and crying and nobody knew I was there.  I just kept thinking that he was going to be alright, that he was going to get better.´

I am struck by how young she looks as she speaks.  Silvia is just 20 and has already dealt with challenges seemingly light-years beyond her young age.

These first sessions of Community Therapy have gone well in the NGO, with in-depth discussions on deeply moving topics chosen by the group itself:  fear of dying and leaving our children vulnerable and the pain and helplessness of seeing a family member with an illness. 

It surprises me that the mothers and fathers are so vocal, so open in these first sessions. 

Perhaps because of the trust we built up with them in 2009.  

Perhaps because of the wound up need to offload overwhelming experiences.   

It surprises me too how powerful the technique is in engaging the volunteers.  One by one each of the volunteers has told me how powerful the technique has been for them and how they have been working through these new insights and understanding for days afterwards.   I guess it´s true what Paulinha, one of the mothers said, after Silvia talked at length of her hospital experiences with her son:

 ´Now´ she said as she looked around the whole group ´you have a better idea of what we mothers go through.´