freer–– and several of her statements during the interview, bore testimony to this. As she pointed out: It was as if there was something pushing, saying, ‘Just speak, speak out, till everything is finished.’ Just like that, as if there was a person pushing me saying, ‘Talk, talk, talk,’ because when I started I didn’t stop. I cried until I had finished, but I had courage to say it, you know, eeh... After opening up, you know, it was as if I was a new person.....I cried a lot to the extent that everything came out. Then the following day, I could even talk about it without feeling the pain I used to feel before this day. This points to the importance of creating a conducive and enabling environment, which Staub, et al., (2005) and Mitchels (2003) say is important if narratives are to have a healing effect. The Tree of Life methodology emphasizes the importance of creating an environment that honors the stories and experiences of the victims in an affirming manner. The absence of such an environment could do more harm than good to the participants. “J” found the process to be so helpful that she sent her domestic worker, who was in a very abusive relationship, to the next workshop. According to “J,” this young lady had been so affected by her husband’s abuse that she barely ate and looked as if she was sick. The domestic worker claimed that, when she came back, she had changed and could open up, and for the first time tell “J” what had happened to her. She even had courage enough to stand up for herself against her abusive husband. Asked about the possibility of a relapse, “J” responded, You think it will recur? Aah, I don’t think so, I don’t know about others but to me, no, it’s now water under the bridge. It went just like that, I am very happy now... it’s like someone going for baptism. I don’t believe that..., when I came from there I said aah, I’m born again now.’ While there is a real danger that respondents will sometimes say what they think a researcher wants to hear, I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of these participants. I tried my best to interrogate their perceptions, but they seemed to believe that something in them had indeed been transformed to a certain extent. Conclusion It would appear, therefore, that the participants benefitted from the TOL workshop. The workshop, to a great extent, began the process of addressing the pain caused by the participants’ traumatic experiences, such as feelings of disempowerment, the desire for revenge, misdirected anger and pain. Participants appear to have been internally fortified and their resilience levels increased. In some cases, posttraumatic growth had taken place, or at