Illuminating Pathways Beyond Abuse and Trauma

With thanks to our Recognised Counselling Service, Nour, for this blog.

Gazes conveying deep compassion

Safety, in this soft, healing light

Warmth, releasing what’s frozen

Balm, for this unsettled heart of mine

Journeying through my lived experiences

Entering the landscape of my inner world

Guided gently through this process

Human connection, resonance of hearts

Bearing witness to my truths

Justice as an act of love

Not letting oppression define me

Preserving the sanctity of my worth

Supporting me to navigate

All that begins to unfold

As I rewrite my story

With a voice that is my own

Weaving together my tapestry

With the threads I choose to spin

Helping me paint my canvas

With the colours of my hopes and dreams

This poem frames the heart of Nour’s healing ethos—it will be echoed throughout the article as we explore our relational model. Nour is an Arabic word that means light. Nour exists as a healing light, illuminating pathways beyond abuse and trauma. This poem captures the essence of the way we work at Nour – a deeply relational model of working with survivors of abuse and trauma. Service in this field of work requires immense compassion; to sit with the lived experiences of those who have suffered injustice and oppression, to journey their inner landscape with deep empathy and gentleness.

A Humanising Response to Dehumanising Abuse

“Warmth, releasing what’s frozen

Balm, for this unsettled heart of mine”

Abuse is an utterly dehumanising experience, as Sanderson (2013) emphasises:

“To counterbalance the dehumanising abuse experience, you will need to be human in your responses rather than clinical, cold or distant.”

Compassion is at the heart of what we do. Compassion for our clients, compassion for our own self, and nurturing self-compassion in our clients; all essential to healing journeys, particularly when healing from trauma. There is an inherent power in genuine therapeutic presence, a ‘healing form of love’ as Siegel (2010), so beautifully phrases it:

“When another person perceives our genuine curiosity, openness, and acceptance, there is a sense of professional caring, what we might be so bold as to call a 'healing form of love.'”

This healing form of love requires a deeper attunement, as Sanderson (2013) notes:

"Creating psychological safety is not just about what we do, but how we are - our presence, our attunement, and our genuine care for the person's wellbeing."

To be truly attuned, is to be present in a way that communicates care on a level that transcends words.

Our Model: Gentle, Holistic, and Culturally-Attuned Support

“Guided gently through this process”

Our trauma-informed, culturally-attuned support provides empathic, safe spaces with values of compassion and justice embedded into services including counselling, advocacy, financial support, legal advice, walk-and-talk sessions, and more.

Healing unfolds through gentle, holistic, heart-centred wraparound care that honours the whole person – mind, body and spirit; meeting people where they are, in the way they need. The attunement between client and practitioner is fostered at a greater relational depth in this model. This holistic, relational approach formed a core part of my training in Islamic Counselling with Stephen Maynard & Associates, and has been foundational to my approach to developing services at Nour.

Through this approach, like the poem's imagery of weaving tapestries and painting canvases, healing becomes a creative, collaborative process, ensuring that we are attuned to the impact of power dynamics; lack of power has often meant devastating consequences for survivors of abuse. Survivors choose which threads of their story to share, which colours to bring forward, while being held in relationships that honour their agency and the wisdom of their own mind, spirit and body. We support them to reweave the tapestries of their lives, making sense and meaning of their experiences, helping rewrite narratives, and supporting them to reclaim their sense of self, their hopes and dreams, so they can lead more conscious, intentional and meaningful lives.

The Practitioner's Journey: Inner Work and Shared Resonance

“Human connection, resonance of hearts”

This profound work of journeying together requires something of us as practitioners. It requires us to explore our own inner landscapes and understand the tapestry of our own lives. This self-work allows us to be truly present with the experiences of those we support without overlaying their experiences with our own. This is especially poignant as an organisation established by minoritised women for minoritised survivors; our experiences and intersectional needs often mirror those we serve. To ensure that our work honours the journey of each survivor, our approach centres the services on the unique, lived experiences of the individuals we serve.

This work, whilst sacred and uplifting, also requires care and compassion for our own self, and each other.

“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.” (Kundera, 1984)

Decolonising Healing: Voices To Be Heard

“As I rewrite my story

With a voice that is my own"

A compassionate and human-centred approach is critical for all survivors, and more so for minoritised survivors, who face additional layers of discrimination that compound dehumanisation. This is further complicated by the lack of culturally-attuned services that can understand their lived experiences and complex intersectional needs. As practitioners, we are acutely aware of the importance of voice in the healing journey for survivors of abuse. However, for many, giving voice to their stories is more complex than is understood.

“Muslim women’s stories about violence are getting harder to tell since they give so much grist for the mill of anti-Muslim racism and indeed, for anti-Muslim wars and military occupations.” (Razak, 2021)

In the violence against women’s and girls (VAWG) sector, there is much work needed towards a decolonised approach to VAWG. Without a decolonised approach, there are nuances that are missed, subtle prejudices that can enter the work, and survivors experience greater isolation through processes of othering. As Montoya and Agustin (2013) observe :

“Violence against women is a universal problem, affecting women at all levels of society; however, differently situated women have unique experiences with violence. Theoretically, this calls for the necessity to balance universality with intersectionality. Analyzing EU policy texts, we argue that the recognition of different forms of violence has led to an increased tendency toward culturalization, i.e. articulating culture as the only explanation behind certain forms of violence or focusing exclusively on culturalized forms of violence. While largely ignoring the gendered nature of violence, cultural framings of violence also create a dichotomy between “insiders” (non-violent Europeans) and “outsiders” (violent others).”

This othering for survivors of abuse creates yet another barrier, another layer of dehumanisation, another form of discrimination to overcome. It can prevent minoritised survivors from seeking help, or can create harm to those who do seek help, if they are not met with the empathy, cultural humility and attunement they need. This is why Nour’s work is firmly rooted in antioppressive practices, and a decolonised approach to VAWG. Because we recognise that being met with understanding and cultural attunement can be profoundly healing. As one client put it:

“I do not have to exhaust myself to explain and educate someone else on my identity and background, before I even get to my own trauma. Nour brought me back home. Home to me. My heart, my identity, my values, my self-esteem, my desires, my religion, my culture. All from a place of consciousness, peace and resilience.”

The Interflow: Where Compassion Meets Justice

“Justice as an act of love”

Compassion is incomplete without a resounding call for justice. Justice and compassion are inextricably interconnected. Establishing justice is an act of compassion – to ensure that everyone can live meaningful lives, in safety, and with dignity. Gilbert (2009) defines compassion as

“A deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it”

Whilst embodying compassion, we remain grounded in the pursuit of social justice. We work to create meaningful change by addressing the inequities that compound trauma for minoritised survivors and by challenging the systems that perpetuate abuse and oppression. Justice and compassion are both integral to our healing work, an interflow of two dynamic forces.

The Sacred Work of Illumination

“Safety, in this soft, healing light”

This is sacred work that requires an intentional and compassionate approach and a deep commitment to upholding justice; to continue to be Nour, a healing light, illuminating pathways to safety, dignity, connection and hope.

Through this deeply relational model, we honour the profound courage it takes for survivors to share their stories, to trust in the healing process, and to reclaim their voices. In creating spaces where survivors can rewrite their narratives with threads of their own choosing, we participate in not only individual healing, but also the sacred work of collective healing and transformation.

And so, we continue to weave together their tapestries,
with the threads they choose to spin,
each person painting their own canvas
with the colours of their hopes and dreams.

Bibliography

Gilbert, P. (2009) The compassionate mind: A new approach to life's challenges. London: Constable and Robinson.

Kundera, M. (1984) The unbearable lightness of being. London: Faber & Faber.

Montoya, C. and Agustin, L.R. (2013) 'The othering of domestic violence: The EU and cultural framings of violence against women', Social Politics, 20(4), pp. 534-557. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxt020

Razak, S.H. (2021) 'Should feminists stop talking about culture in the context of violence against Muslim women? The case of "honour killing"', International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 12(1), pp. 31-48. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs121202120082

Sanderson, C. (2013) Counselling skills for working with trauma: Healing from child sexual abuse, sexual violence and domestic abuse. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Siegel, D.J. (2010) The mindful therapist: A clinician's guide to mindsight and neural integration. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

About the Author

Waheeda Islam is the Chief Executive of Nour, a minoritised women-led charity working with survivors of abuse and trauma. She is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, clinical hypnotherapist, amateur poet and a published author. Waheeda firmly believes in a heart-centred approach to her work, rooted in compassion and justice. She has her own private practice, Inner Rewilding Therapy, specialising in trauma work with survivors of abuse. In her chapter, Themes in an intercultural approach to supervision: working with survivors of abuse, published in ‘Intercultural Supervision in Therapeutic Practice: Dialogues, Perspectives and Reflections’, Waheeda provides a compelling case for mental health professionals to actively champion social justice.

For more information about Nour's work, contact info@nour.org.uk or visit their website www.nour.org.uk.

Updated September 2025