From October 27th to the 28th,the CVCS project team of Kyungil University started group counseling of actual crime victims at Daekyung Training Center in Gyeongsan. The KIU team were supported by the Gyeongbuk Provincial Police Agency and its affiliated police station. The program was hosted by the CVCS Project Team (Director Kim Dong-Hyuk), Prof. Ko Eun-Young, and Prof. Lee Eun-Ae of the Department of Psychotherapy. The team conducted a 16-hour group counseling program and took charge of the whole process.

The professional group counselors, Ko and Lee, conducted a counseling program focusing on the treatment of trauma by combining safety-based treatment (Seeking Safety) through this program. Safety-based therapy is known as the treatment with the lowest recurrence rate in the psychotherapy process because the safety of the participants is the highest priority, unlike the existing trauma treatment approach. Through this program, participants empathized with pain and suffering, experienced courage in the safest environment and self-management, and were able to experience positive emotions through comfort, healing, empathy, and encouragement. In addition, whenever memories and wounds related to crime damage appeared in the participants’ daily lives, they practiced psychological first aid (grounding) to manage themselves and felt a real sense of safety.

In fact, crime victims who participated in the group counseling showed fairly bright facial expressions, when comparing the testimonies of the first hours of the program to those of the last, and they gave a positive response to the fact that they had the opportunity to tell their stories. At the end of the program, it was also possible to expect all participants of group counseling to be friends with each other, to share their contacts, and to build ongoing relationships. It can be assumed that after the group counseling the self-help group could continue to sustain self-growth and healing.

Prof. Ko and Prof. Lee (Department of Psychotherapy), who conducted this program, said, “We hope that the social prejudice about counseling and psychotherapy will be reduced.” They warned that due to prejudice, victims of crime could have secondary and tertiary injuries that could take away opportunities for healing and growth. “In order to improve this, it is necessary to change the fundamental recognition of the government support system such as the police and lawyers who support crime victims,” they said. In this regard, the significance of the program is a good precedent for the police to take the lead, to approach the victim’s psychological difficulties, and to move to action.

In addition, Kim Dong-Hyuk, director of the CVCS project team, said, “I hope that this program will help the victims to relieve their pain. It is also hoped that the CVCS project participants who as assistants joined the program for 1 night and 2 days, become educated as experts who can care for the pain of crime victims.”