Goals of 
Weekends of Recovery

Goals of 
Weekends of Recovery

Level 1 Weekends of Recovery (WOR) offer a healing experience for adult men who are survivors of sexual harm experienced during childhood and/or as an adult. The WOR is constructed with the purposes of Skills-Building, Psychoeducation, and Community-Building.

Participation will provide you with an opportunity to acquire a range of CORE SKILLS. These skills promote healthy healing and are particularly beneficial for recovery from sexual victimization. These skills can be remembered within an “A-B-C” acronym:

A = awareness, acceptance, authenticity
B = breathing, body, boundaries
C = curiosity, compassion, connection, community
The Overall Goals for a Level 1 WOR are to provide:
  1. an opportunity to experience a safe environment in which participants can discover they are no longer alone in their healing;
  2. an opportunity to co-create and experience safety with other survivors as they explore further aspects of their healing journey;
  3. an opportunity where survivors can share their inner pain, strength and hope with others who have been sexually harmed;
  4. an opportunity for participants to give a voice to their experiences as a survivor;
  5. a safe way for participants to share the story of their sexual trauma with others who will understand and offer support;
  6. a safe place for participants to experiment with letting go, opening up and being vulnerable, and practice asking for the support they need;
  7. an opportunity for participants to explore safe ways of expanding their comfort zones, to find ways to deal with obstacles that prevent them from moving beyond their sexual harm, and to experience a greater sense of freedom in their minds, bodies, and spirits;
  8. a safe place where participants can experience a sense of community, brotherhood, and joy.
“I can see a light I thought burned out of me years ago. I am a survivor still finding my way, but anchored by a lighthouse called MenHealing.”
Goals of Advanced Weekend of Recovery

Survivors are resilient and have developed the ability to feel better and experience safety, self-worth, intimacy, and freedom. Difficult emotions, such as shame, guilt, depression, anxiety, anger and many others, may feel like inner perpetrators for many survivors by shutting them down and trapping them in unhealthy patterns. Advanced Weekends of Recovery are designed to help participants develop a conscious and healing relationship with these difficult emotions – a relationship characterized by exquisite self-compassion, self-respect, and self-direction. Similar to Level I, we will utilize mindfulness skills, body awareness and empowerment, experiential activities, music, art, outdoor exploration, movement, play, and small-group processing to reach these goals.

General goals for an Advanced Weekend of Recovery

To help you leave the weekend with:

  1. Increased awareness and understanding of the impact of abuse on building and enhancing intimacy;
  2. Enhanced ability to connect with other male survivors and their partners, with an intimate partner, with the significant people in your life, and with your own inner experience;
  3. Practical skills for ensuring safety;
  4. Building and enhancing the intimacy in your life and working together with a partner to further your healing;
  5. The power to identify and remove psychological, emotional and spiritual blocks to your healing process;
  6. If you are a partner of a male survivor, to gain additional support and skills to enhance your own self-care and deepen intimacy in relationships.