Coaching practices for Victim Impact Statement

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Victim Impact Statement, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The story of why this happened to me has been running on a loop in my head for so long, all tangled up with blame and shame, that I’ve never once written it down plainly
• They keep treating what they did as a rule they broke, an abstraction — and they have no real idea what it actually did to me day to day.
• I finally tell them honestly how I feel and they go quiet and guilty
• When I finally try to say how something landed on me, it comes out as "you made me feel"
• The story I carry about my own life is fragmented and full of shame, and I want it written down properly somewhere outside my head

Practices that may help

1. Write an impact statement — why the trauma happened and how it affected you
   A written account of the meaning you made of the trauma is CPT’s starting point for finding stuck points.
   Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): Unsticking the Meanings That Maintain PTSD
2. Make the harm visible through an impact statement
   The person who caused harm must hear — in detail — what the harm actually did to the person harmed.
   Restorative Justice (Howard Zehr)
3. Follow I-statements with a clear request
   An I-statement without a request expresses the problem but gives no path to a solution.
   I-Statements: How to Express Yourself Without Triggering Defensiveness
4. Express how you feel using "I" statements
   Say how the situation affects you — "I feel..." rather than "you make me feel..."
   DEAR MAN: DBT’s Skill for Asking for What You Want Effectively
5. Create a testimony document
   NET produces a written testimony of the person’s life — a document that the person and therapist co-author and that the person keeps.
   Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET): Weaving Trauma Into a Coherent Life Story
6. Name the actual impact on you or the team
   Say what effect the behavior had — on you, on others, on the work.
   The SBI Feedback Model, Made Practical
7. Identifying and Targeting the Trauma Memory
   Pinpoint the specific memory, its worst moment (the "touchstone"), and the negative belief it installed.
   EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
8. Name the primary emotion, not the secondary one
   Anger is almost always a secondary emotion — name what’s underneath it.
   I-Statements: How to Express Yourself Without Triggering Defensiveness
9. Offer empathy before using an I-statement
   When the other person is activated, empathy first — I-statement second.
   I-Statements: How to Express Yourself Without Triggering Defensiveness
10. Look honestly for what has grown or changed for the better
    Without minimising the loss, notice any growth, change, or perspective that has emerged from it.
    Meaning Reconstruction in Grief, Made Practical

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