You can do more than recover!  Being a “survivor” of sex abuse is not your identity! You can move from managing symptoms to conquering the cause of the symptoms. In the Restoration Paradigm we acknowledge the behavior we want to change and assign to ourselves the power to change the underlying beliefs that drive the behaviors. The Restoration Paradigm provides the pathway to connecting to your authentic identity.

Why do we need a new Paradigm?
For many years the mental health community has utilized the “recovery model” and the typical twelve step program.  An entire generation of people in captivity to drugs and/or alcohol was able to make amazing steps towards freedom from addictions that plagued them.  The twelve step approach is based on the premise that if you admit powerlessness over the substance or behavior that is controlling your life, you have a key to freedom from it.  And indeed the program has equipped thousands of people to break destructive habits.  However, we suggest it is time for a fresh paradigm that points to acquiring power, not giving it up.

What’s the difference between recovery and restoration?
Recovery provides liberty from symptoms.  Restoration provides freedom from the cause of the symptoms.  Recovery teaches that you are powerless to overcome and leaves you dependent on a program.  Restoration teaches that you have power and provides a framework for reconnecting to your authentic identity where your power lies.  Restoration is NOT just another new word for recovery.  Restoration is a new paradigm providing a framework to reconnect to who you were created capable of being.  That’s where your power is!

What are the core elements of Restoration?
Recognize – Core to the journey is recognizing where the trauma has impacted your thinking, your emotions and your behaviors.  It requires looking behind the details of abuse to the hidden impact.

Power of Agreement – When you align your thinking or emotions with any aspect of the sex abuse, you have assigned your power to the molester and created a power of agreement.  Restoration requires that you identify any power of agreements and realign your power.  When you agree with the positive things about yourself and embrace all aspects of your identity, your power of agreement shifts things for you.

Responsibility – No, you do not take responsibility for the abuse that happens.  The only person who should carry that responsibility is the perpetrator.  You must, however, take responsibility for doing the hard work of restoration.  Although it is extremely frustrating that you are left carrying the burden to get better, you are the only one who can accomplish that.

Exchange – When you identify those unhealthy power of agreements or destructive messages of abuse, you must take back your power and exchange the negative for the positive.  Freedom is not achieved by piling new thinking on top of old thinking – you must make an exchange.

What are Restoration Ranges?
The Restoration Paradigm identifies four ranges, not stages, of a process.  We have been intentional in our choice of the word “range” as we establish the concept that people on a restoration journey will roam, wander and vary among the definitions. They are not checklists, but rather concepts that will aid you in reaching for the deeper possibility of internal change. 

The four ranges are:
Refugee:  The world doesn’t understand me and I don’t understand the world.  The refugee is beginning to explore the reality of having experienced sex abuse.  He or she sees the world from that filter with the crippled understandings and beliefs driving her view of self and the world.

Overcoming:  I am my story. The victim begins to explore how sex abuse has impacted her in the now of her life.  She begins to realize she does not have to remain in that definition.

Conquering: I am more than the abuse. The victim knows that sex abuse was an experience, not an identity. He is working to identify his true self and making the exchanges to reconnect to his full potential.

Identity:  Fully me. Restored and reconnected to all aspects of identity the victim is now a survivor and has power to define his life.