By Carla Beecher-Moehn
UIC Alumni Magazine - January/February 1997 (Volume 1, Issue 2)
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| Making people feel comfortable is the goal of therapists Amy Grabowski (left), Victoria Polin and Kate Fiello. |
“More
than anything, we want people to feel comfortable and safe here," said
Amy Grabowski, M.A. ’86, the director and founder of the Awakening
Center on North Lincoln Avenue just south of Belmont. So it’s no
coincidence that visitors are greeted in the center’s small waiting room
by classical music playing quietly, herbal teas sitting in a box
waiting to be steeped and literature offering information on such topics
as sexual abuse, eating disorders and surviving trauma.
As the literature suggests, the Awakening Center’s therapists counsel
people for depression and anxiety and specialize in eating disorders
and physical, mental and sexual abuse.
Of the four therapists who staff the center, three are UIC alumni. Grabowski earned a master’s in art therapy. Victoria Polin, M.A. ’91 received a master’s in art therapy,
and Kate Fiello, M.S.W. ’89, a movement therapist, received a master’s
in social work. The fourth associate, Marianne Evans-Ramsay, is a
licensed and registered dietitian/nutritionist who specializes in
disordered eating.
The four women not only share a home-like office space, complete with
comfy couches and pictures on the walls, but also a similar philosophy
about the need for the mind, body and spirit to work in harmony.
"Whether it’s with individuals or groups, each of us works toward
helping clients establish a balance and harmony within themselves," said
Grabowski. "We help them achieve a sense of calmness, compassion and
inner strength within their core self."
"The result," she continued, "is a feeling of balance and the ability to love the person that they were meant to be."
Grabowski started the center two years ago after running a private
practice for seven years. She wanted a place that would offer
counseling, treatment and solace for those suffering from depression,
anxiety and low self-esteem. She also wanted to help couples and parents
who needed help with communication and parenting skills. As a result,
the center’s staff provides clients with a safe haven from their fears.
Some clients also need to work out such traumatic experiences as incest,
rape, physical and/or mental abuse, and even the anguish of political
terrorism.
As a creative therapist and a licensed clinical professional
counselor, Grabowski specializes in women’s issues, especially eating
disorders, body image problems and anxiety. She uses art therapy and
phototherapy to help her clients work through their problems.
"I focus on emotional attunement," she said, "and use a theory called
Internal Family Systems Therapy whose goal is to create an inner peace
and cooperation among the personality’s different parts."
The theory’s premise is that people have many facets of themselves —
some are in harmony and some are polarized. The therapy tries to create a
balance between them.
A basket on the coffee table in Grabowski’s office holds figures that
clients use to help them understand themselves better: there are Barbie
dolls, gargoyles, a potato person, an Oreo cookie figure, a witch, an
angel and mythical figures.
"These figures represent different aspects of ourselves," she said
while setting up several of the dolls. "We use them to symbolize the
relationship between the parts. There are pairs of parts that are
polarized in extreme roles — which is often where problems arise.
"As we try to get the two parts to become less extreme and more in
balance, clients begin to see how one part of them may be very critical
of the part of them that is fearful or playful.
"They set up a sort of diorama with these figures that helps them
talk with each part of themselves individually, as opposed to having
their many parts arguing in their head all the time."
Clients pick one figure to represent their core self. "I like to call
that figure the conductor — it’s conducting the orchestra of our
different selves. Many people don’t have a good feeling about who that
part is. While we’re uncovering who that person is, the figure is always
on the table so they can see what they’re working toward becoming."
When Grabowski uses phototherapy, clients bring in several photos of
themselves at various young ages. If they were traumatized, a part of
them is typically stuck at that age and may keep reliving the
experience. Grabowski makes a photo copy of the picture which the client
uses to draw on or cut out for use in a collage.
"People have strong feelings toward themselves at a certain age," she
continued. "With the photos, they can see themselves and it often
softens their feelings about who they were then. They become more
compassionate toward that part of themselves. They think, ‘I was so
young.’ There are many aspects of therapy that tap into those parts,
unburdening them or letting go of something from the past."
Kate Fiello uses movement to help clients get back in touch with
their bodies. Many of her clients have eating disorders like anorexia
nervosa or may be overweight.
"Many of my clients are disconnected from their bodies — they may
view them as a bad object and have difficulty relating to it," said
Fiello from the large office that serves as a studio for the movement
and art therapy sessions. The space is comfortable and warm.
Fiello’s clients have undergone some type of abuse or trauma that has
caused them to separate their minds from their bodies. Fiello’s goal is
to get them back in touch with their bodies through movement in hopes
that the reconnection will free them from the fear of feeling their
bodies.
"I start slowly, because at some level, my clients realize they need to
be in their bodies to heal, but they’re terrified of their bodies
because that’s where they were traumatized."
Fiello, who is a licensed clinical social worker, begins with
breathing awareness — clients begin to notice the rhythm of their
breath. What does it feel like? Where is it moving? Does their chest
move, their stomach? Is there a part of the body that’s not letting the
breath in? What might that tell them about how they’re feeling?
"For instance, when you’re scared, your breath shortens and your
chest tightens up," Fiello said. "When you’re relaxed, the breath is
more fluid. I want my clients to gently listen to their breath and then
scan their body from head to toe to see how it’s feeling. Is their head
light or heavy? It’s basic kinesthetic sensing and gets them to start
being comfortable with their bodies."
Most of her clients are women who are stuck. They intellectually
understand their eating disorders — they know all the dynamics of the
disorder in their head, but they haven’t integrated it with their
bodies. They’re emotionally repressed. The sensing exercise brings them
closer to those feelings.
According to Fiello, many of these women fear that if they get in
touch with their feelings, they’ll explode. They don’t have a sense of
where their bodies begin and end.
"They think, ‘If my body feels numb now, how will I deal with all the
emotions once I start feeling again.’ So I help them with their body
boundaries and we try to modulate the degree of the feelings."
One woman in a session with Fiello got angry and had the urge to kick
her feet, but was afraid that if she really let her feet feel her
anger, she might kick apart the room. So Fiello regulated her kicking
from one to 10. Once the woman reached the highest level and kicked the
hardest at 10, Fiello helped her control it and bring it back down to
one.
"It doesn’t have to be overwhelming," Fiello said. "They can learn to feel a little bit at a time."
A highly distorted body image is a hallmark of anorexia. It is hard to
fathom how anorexics think they are fat when they are literally wasting
away. To gauge how far off their image is of themselves, Fiello asks new
patients to close their eyes and measure with their extended hands how
wide they think their hips are. They then lower their arms and open
their eyes to see how much wider they imagine themselves to be than they
really are.
It’s also common for overeaters to imagine they are smaller than they truly are, added Fiello.
"Culturally, we are just not taught to be in tune with our bodies. We’re taught to intellectualize."
One reason trauma victims become anorexic, according to Fiello, is on an
unconscious level, the smaller they become, the less they’ll be seen,
and, therefore, won’t get hurt.
"Many times my clients don’t know how to say no or how to stand up
for themselves," Fiello said. "To protect themselves, trauma survivors
dissociated from their bodies when they were being abused — they just
left their bodies and went away in their minds. So over time, when
things get stressful, they have the same reaction, which leaves them
powerless. I try to teach them to be present in their bodies and become
aware of that pattern of dissociation. Then they can start taking care
of themselves.
"By thinking of their body as a container, they can feel their boundaries and take control of their lives.
"I love seeing people come alive again, when they begin to embody
themselves again. I get to witness the fullness of them. Their
personalities become richer as they grow and evolve. It’s wonderful to
help them find that."
Vicki Polin also loves seeing her clients grow and change.
"I like watching people fulfill their dreams and wishes and do the things I know they can do," she said.
Polin, who works with victims as young as age 4, directs the Trauma,
Recovery and Empowerment Services at the center. Also a licensed
clinical professional counselor and a registered art therapist, Polin
uses an eclectic approach of both verbal and creative therapies.
"Because
many of us get stuck in self-defeating and unfulfilling life patterns
in an attempt to re-create our own personal universe, psychotherapy
offers a way to rediscover our own potential and bring a balance of
mind, body and spirit," Polin said.
Previously, Polin coordinated an international organization for adult
survivors of child sexual abuse and has volunteered as a rape crisis
advocate in hospitals.
"That job inspired me to get a master’s in art therapy from UIC in work that I thought was important," she said.
Last January, Polin started a free group for adult survivors of
childhood sexual abuse at the Awakening Center. The group meets Saturday
mornings at the center and represents people from all racial and
economic backgrounds. When Polin found that men weren’t attending
because of the stigma attached to being sexually abused as children, she
changed the name of the program from survivors of sexual abuse to
survivors of childhood trauma.
"All of the sudden, I started getting Holocaust survivors and victims
of political terrorism. It was very interesting how things opened up."
But no matter what the abuse, the ramifications were the same: having
low self-esteem, being unable to do things they wanted to do, and
having flashbacks and nightmares — the same symptoms as post traumatic
stress disorder.
Polin has noticed a new trend in clients: children of Flower Children.
"Lately I’ve seen several clients who grew up traveling across the
country in a van with their parents where there was free sex, and drugs
and alcohol abuse," noted Polin. "It’s a whole different kind of abuse
that we haven’t paid attention to. These young adults, who are now in
their 20s, had very little structure. Some of these people try to be
free and wild, but they’ll have flashbacks of their parents having sex,
which can be traumatizing to a 3- or 4-year-old child. These clients are
trying to figure out if they were sexually abused or just very
sexualized as children."
Polin
has found art therapy especially useful when patients are trying to
understand a trauma that happened when they were very young — before
their language skills were fully developed.
"Non-verbal
therapy, like art work, seems to help. They draw a picture of the
feeling, whether it’s realistic or abstract, or they may do a collage.
The pictures may seem cryptic at first, but over time, the pictures come
together and clients seem to find some resolution."
Polin recalls Harriet Wadeson, UIC associate professor of art and
design, saying, "Memorize every theory we give you while you’re in
school and the day you graduate, forget it all and you’ll learn it all
over again when you get out in the field."
"It’s true," Polin said. "Unless you’re out there working with
people, you’re clueless. It was two years of hell, that program. But if
you can make it through, you can make it through anything. It was really
helpful."
UIC’s art therapy program teaches its students ways to recognize when
a patient is on the mend. Polin knows when clients are getting ready to
leave therapy when their lives start to change for the better.
"If they go back to school, or divorce an abusive husband, or maybe
go after a new job they’ve been talking about — I know that something is
happening there. If I think they’re ready, I’ll try to nudge them out.
Sometimes it’s scary for them to leave because this is a safe place."
As clients work through their problems, they begin to realize they’re
not to blame for what happened to them, and they learn to deal with
their anger and rage. They begin to see they can live life on their own
terms.
"I
try to follow their lead, because most have let choice be taken away
from them," she said. "I know many times clients want to think I will tell them what to do to make their lives better, but the answers are
really within them."
In
summing up the philosophy of the center, Grabowski added, "Our name,
the Awakening Center, means that we hope to awaken the balanced self
inside us that is there, but dormant. As we become enlightened, we
awaken ourselves to the core person
inside."
Victoria Polin recently compiled the "1997 Chicagoland Area Sexual Abuse Resource Guide for Care Providers and Consumers".
