interactive sessions, which included group discussions, argumentation, and consensus meetings, were the prime tool for data collection. Dialogue typically played a central role in PAR because participants were able to better understand their own reality from the critical analysis of their own particular situations and problems. Participants engaged in informative, reflective, and interrogative discussions concerning their experiences and actions during the sessions, and were able to devise solutions or consider new actions. The discussions were held in a mixture of isiNdebele and English which were recorded (with the permission of the group) and later transcribed to facilitate data analysis. One limitation of this way of capturing data was the loss of much of the nonverbal aspects of the conversations, which usually added a critical dimension to the understanding. Having a transcribed record of the discussions was important because these could be shared with the participants, not only for their records and use, but also for verification purposes. This article focuses solely on one aspect of the PAR, namely the TOL workshop, and seeks to evaluate its impact on survivors of mass political violence. Although an inductive content analysis was used, an a priori theoretical framework and personal interests and preconceptions influenced the approach to the analysis, for I was both PAR researcher and program designer. This carries a risk that researcher bias might influence results and conclusions reached. In PAR, one of the ways to guard against this is to ensure that there are “appropriate communicative structures in place throughout the research and action which allow participants to continue to associate with and identify with the work of the collective project change” (McTaggart, 1998, p. 225). The preliminary results of the research were brought to the group for verification and discussion, and the final results incorporated a number of comments made at this stage of the research. In the final analysis, the extent to which participants identified and felt they truly owned both the process and the final product was the crucial indicator of credibility. TOL: Quest for Healing and Empowerment The Tree of Life was originally designed to work with unemployed youths and was adapted in 2002 to the needs of Zimbabwean political refugees living in South Africa; it was introduced to Zimbabwe in 2004. In both countries, the participants were mainly victims of the political violence emanating from the farm invasions of 2000 and the subsequent elections in Zimbabwe (Reeler, et al., 2009; Templer, 2010). The workshop was a two-and-ahalf-day residential program, led by survivors who had undergone training in the methodology. It was a healing and empowerment workshop that combined storytelling, healing of the spirit, re-establishing a sense of community, and self-esteem and reconnection with the body. The process centered upon a series of circles resembling the traditional village