Domestic Abuse Treatment

Domestic violence or intimate partner violence also referred to as interpersonal trauma, is a major source of trauma for women (and can affect men as well) and carries with it a high risk for PTSD. Rates of domestic violence are especially high for the socially marginalized, financially insecure, living with a relative or partner with alcohol, substance use disorders, or mental health problems, or who are experiencing low income and poverty.

Figures from the WHO suggest at least one in seven (14.2%) children and young people under the age of 18 will have lived with domestic violence at some point in their childhood.

Figures from WHO also suggest children from low-income families are also significantly more likely to witness domestic violence and violence in their communities and they are significantly more likely to sustain a violent assault or rape not perpetrated by a family member. Other research has also found that children who are maltreated, especially those who sustain physical abuse, are more likely to be exposed to violence in their communities and to witness domestic violence; these latter traumatic experiences have specific negative effects on children’s functioning beyond those associated with abuse/neglect.

The five primary diagnoses most likely to impact survivors and their children affected by domestic violence are:

1.Acute Stress Disorder

2.Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

3.Chronic Trauma

4.C-PTSD

5.Developmental Trauma

Acute stress disorder is a label that is given to stress reactions of individuals within the first month of experiencing trauma. The symptoms of ASD overlap with those of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Acute trauma is the result of a single incident. To meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD, the difficulties above will have been happening for at least several weeks and will be causing significant difficulties in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of life.

Complex trauma is caused by repeated exposure to multiple traumatic events of different types. Experiences that may result in C-PTSD include combinations of childhood sexual, emotional, or physical abuse and prolonged domestic violence. In addition to experiencing all of the features of PTSD, individuals with C-PTSD may also experience severe and persistent difficulties with regulating and controlling their emotions, believing that they are permanently damaged, defeated, or worthless, feeling shameful, guilty, or a failure; and difficulties in sustaining relationships and in feeling close to others. Common experiences that may result in Chronic or Complex Trauma include childhood sexual, emotional, or physical abuse and prolonged domestic violence.

Developmental trauma is a collection of difficulties that may develop following either exposure to harm and threat that shouldn’t have happened the absence of care and protection that should have happened. Usually, these events will have taken place repeatedly, over a long period of time, and often during childhood. Escape from these events will have been difficult or impossible. Developmental trauma predominantly impacts children and adolescents and may better be categorized as trauma through the experience of an absence of care and protection. This might include growing up in a home with emotionally unstable or unavailable parents or carers. Within the context of domestic violence, even after separating from their abusers, many mothers find it extremely difficult to protect their children from ongoing abuse as a result of their requirement to comply with contact orders made by the family courts.

C-PTSD is likely to be shame-based, rather than fear-based as with PTSD. The importance of compassion-focused therapies is recognized by Sea Change to try to increase compassionate ability. Deployment of compassion-focused therapy such as EMDR, ACT, or DBT is deemed to be suitable first-line treatments in the delivery of experiential and psychoeducational programs.

What We Offer

Sea Change is a new healthcare company due to begin treating survivors in 2022.

The founders believe that the augmented delivery of first-line therapies in conjunction with singular targeted interventions such as EMDR, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and an innovative groundbreaking neuroscience technology to be delivered when the clinic opens, is in alignment with currently recommended best practice in the delivery of trauma-informed care.

Sea Change is prepared to treat a proportion of its inpatient and intensive outpatient survivors for free in an attempt to reduce their symptoms of trauma and improve their life circumstances.

We are currently in talks with a number of key stakeholders, community services, and Refuges to be able to accept free treatment referrals for our groundbreaking treatment programs.

We have the capacity to begin offering free treatment at our outpatient clinics once we are in receipt of the equipment we are fundraising for.

Sea Change is in the process of finalizing their licensure with the Board of Investment and have contracts with suppliers of neuroimaging equipment in place.

Successful income generation and fundraising are critical for us to be able to secure the equipment we require to deliver these vital treatments.

The young, the poor, and socially disadvantaged did not cause the problems they are facing today but they are hit the hardest.

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