We Believe In HEALING!

Because we are advocates for your healing, we support your efforts in choosing the very best support and coaching professionals. We know it can be overwhelming and confusing to find the help you need. We hope that by sharing our assumptions about trauma and healing, you will understand who we are and what we stand for to help you confidently make an informed decision about whether we are the right fit for you and the people you love.

HCH Assumptions about betrayal trauma and relationships:

• • • Honesty and transparency are the cornerstones of relationships/a shared truth is fundamental to healing.
    • People can change.
    • Empathy can be taught and developed.
    • Deceptive sexuality, covert or overt, is a form of domestic abuse.
    • Sexual entitlement, an unhealthy prioritization of personal sexual experience and gratification over the human rights of other human beings, leads to abuse.
    • Deceptive sexuality causes acute emotional and sexual trauma to the betrayed partner.
    • Attachment trauma is a traumatic injury to the brain.
    • Betrayal trauma must be seen and validated in order for healing.
    • Relationships can heal, and not all relationships will heal.
    • Shame and defensiveness are barriers to relational healing.
    • Relationships can end in healthy ways.
    • People can heal and thrive in their lives even when their relationship ends.
    • Secrecy and deception is an integrity abuse disorder, a form of intimate partner abuse that causes trauma.
    • We conceptualize deceptive sexuality and acting out as a Compulsive-Abusive-Sexual-Relational problem that requires treatment for the relational and psychological abuse in addition to the problematic sexual behavior.
    • Any behavior in a relationship lacking conscious consent from both partners constitutes relational abuse.
    • Human psychobiological systems are complex, and trauma impacts our nervous system in ways that are both inside our conscious control and outside our conscious control, making it essential to get help from others.

HCH’s general philosophy and culture:

We know this may not answer every question you have about us, but we hope it gives you a general idea about who we are and what we stand for.

• • Everyone is worthy of love and belonging.
  • People have inherent worth that is equal to others. People have worth and value equal to–not better than nor less than–every other person. This is known as inherent worth.
  • Change is possible.
  • We are constantly changing.
  • We support the LGBTQ+ community.
  • People have the right to enjoy sex and their sexuality. People have the right to enjoy sex and sexuality as long as the person is not violating someone else’s boundaries, either covertly or overtly. There should be no shame around sex with appropriately defined and communicated boundaries. There should be no shame regarding gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender identity, or relationship status.
  • “Beware the tyranny of the one right way.” We believe we don’t have all the answers and can quickly get stuck in our perceptions and biases and do our best to be open to new ideas.
  • We understand that we continue to learn and grow through our lifetimes and may update our assumptions when we get new information or new learnings.
  • Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and kindness.
  • We have an obligation to speak respectfully to and about others.
  • Trauma can be healed.
  • People and human relationships are complex, and we are still learning about these complexities. Learning new information may change our assumptions about relationships and life.
  • We have the right to make choices about our treatment and healing. Everyone deserves to find the treatment and healing that works for them, and only they can decide what that is.
  • We connect through our similarities and grow through our differences.
  • Connection is a basic human need.
  • We ultimately heal through compassion and kindness for ourselves and others.
  • Our emotions give us useful information. Emotions give us information about ourselves and our environment. Emotions are not right or wrong. They simply are. It is our behavior that is important.
  • We learn best from each other when we have openness, kindness, and compassion. If we feel that is not happening we have the right to set boundaries or even disconnect. Non-violent communication, (NVC) is one wonderful tool for that.
  • None of us will do all things perfectly. That is part of being human. We all deserve some grace to take responsibility for and learn from our mistakes, but not at the expense of others’ safety.