Healing in action

It's a Saturday morning and the waiting room at Journey Seminars in Salt Lake City is empty. Also silent. Somewhere down the hall a dozen Utahns are in the midst of a psychotherapy workshop. They have come here to relive an old hurt. They've come to rage in a safe place. Somewhere beyond the waiting room, right about now, someone surely must be yelling.

When the group breaks for lunch, Lisa Woirhaye comes to the waiting area for a chat. She's been through the Journey seminar several times, she says, and she grins as she agrees that the soundproofing in the back room is pretty good.

Calmly, steadily, Woirhaye explains why she sought therapy. She tells of the older boys in her Ogden neighborhood who molested her when she was a child. She says she grew into a troubled teenager. She hoped to forget her problems by marrying a religious man.

But Woirhaye and her husband weren't happy. He abused her, she says. They had children who were angry, too — and wild or withdrawn. As she speaks, Woirhaye pulls out a photo of herself taken during the worst days of her marriage.

In the picture she slouches in a chair, eating fries. She has deep shadows under her eyes. She looks defeated.

Shortly after the photo was taken, Woirhaye and her husband began family counseling. Eventually one of their children reported that their dad was sexually abusing some of the kids. He is now in prison, serving time for sexual abuse.

They got a divorce. Woirhaye moved to a new town and went on welfare. She worked, too, off and on, at minimum-wage jobs. She continued in therapy and the kids who had been abused got counseling as well.

Looking back, Woirhaye says that sitting in a chair and talking to a counselor can only take you so far. "You get 55 minutes. Enough time to open yourself up and go home wounded."

You can make real progress in therapy that gives you 40 or 50 hours, she says. When you stop the group sessions only long enough to eat and sleep. When you can confront people who have hurt you without them really being there. Today, during the afternoon session, it will be her turn to do a little healing through action.

In Utah, lately, there are increasing opportunities for healing through action. Salt Lake County offers a free class for teenage girls called "Discovering Possibilities." Several people offer sweat lodges, also free. Then there are programs such as the one Woirhaye went through and now volunteers for. Journey trauma workshops are run by clinical therapist Paul Mundt and cost $1,250 for 10 days of group sessions spread over the course of three weeks, with follow-up sessions later.