The rooms were beside the beach, the vibe was beautiful and calming – for a group of women suffering from trauma it was the perfect reprieve.

They would come to Cambridge Beaches Resort & Spa at the invitation of Kelly Savery, a Bermudian trauma psychologist whose practice Taproot Psychology is based in Britain.

The women arrived at the Sandys resort with a laundry list of problems that had kept them “stuck”: traumatic grief, physical, sexual and emotional abuse were among them.

Help came from Dr Savery and a handful of local practitioners: Latoya Bridgewater taught trauma-informed yoga, Charlene Anglade somatic therapy and Shaydrina Hassell offered a movement workshop on embodying boundaries.

“One woman said that she had been in therapy for about six or seven years and she felt like she had learnt more about herself and moved forward more than she had in her six years of therapy,” said Dr Savery.

“She really attributed that to us as facilitators [and] the other group members being able to impart.”

Eye Movement, Desensitisation and Reprocessing was a new therapy for most of them.

“It helps you to process traumatic memories and so we had a couple of group sessions using that approach and the women were so surprised.

“As an EMDR therapist I wasn’t, but they were so surprised at how much they shifted in terms of being able to process the traumatic experience.”

The retreat was a first for Dr Savery who describes her greatest joy as a therapist as “witnessing change”.

“When we finished, we got some really valuable feedback from participants,” she said. “It was just such a fantastic experience. I can't thank Cambridge Beaches enough. It was really beautiful.

“People pointed out that [a great part of being there was being] by the beach, being away from their lives; being able to fully immerse themselves in the therapy without interruption was huge.”

When people think about healing they tend to think of it as an individual act.

The retreat showed the impact that group therapy can have, said Dr Savery, who intends to host another trauma retreat in November.

“[Part of] the power of the group is … you have the feedback, learning from other people around you that makes it incredibly unique.”

Six residents attended; four flew in for the inaugural event.

“Out of the group I think, eight of them, they started with a memory and in terms of distress, they rated it a ten out of ten. And then after they reported a zero out of ten so it was quite spectacular to witness.

“Some had traumatic bereavement, some had experiences of sexual abuse, some had experiences [that were] more aversive in terms of parental figures – emotional abuse or physical abuse.

“So it was a range of different sorts of experiences that we were working with. And the thing that kind of kind of connected us was this feeling of being stuck and not being able to to know how to move past the thing that had happened.”

As a group, the women said that what had a tremendous impact on them was that they were “in a space for women, by women”.

“When people think about healing they think it is something that’s very individual, that they have to do it alone but it was so powerful being in this collective healing space.

“It was an essential part of the process because they were getting feedback from others and knowing that you can be cared for and that you can feel safe in a group was just so massive.”

Participants were offered the chance to attend a follow-up session six weeks after last November’s retreat.

“More than half of the women attended and shared how the retreat had allowed them to better advocate for themselves,” Dr Savery said. “They said that they had been able to use the skills learnt on the retreat in their day-to-day life.

“Two of the women spoke about how they had established better boundaries in their relationship and all of the women described how they felt more able to offer themselves self-love and compassion.”

Important for her as a therapist was understanding how it is possible to “update past memories by creating new ones”.

“And for me what was so important about this is that we repeat what we don’t repair. We repair through expanding our experiences and allowing ourselves to create new ones.

“Our time at the retreat allowed us to develop new neuropathways through the creation of new memories.”

One of the lessons learnt was that a traumatic experience can “rob us of our safety in our bodies, our relationships and in the world”.

“As part of the retreat we were really reminded about how we can create that internal and external sense of safety.

“I knew when we were developing the retreat that it was important. And I think the learning was that we were able to do that by being consistent by giving them containment, being responsible, being present.”

Coping with emotional pain is often difficult, mainly because people tend to not want to deal with emotions that they are uncomfortable with, she added.

“They [tend to] mask them because they’re really scary. It can feel overwhelming, but we were reminded about how experiencing and then integrating that pain is a key part of healing.”

Most important for people to understand is that healing is an ongoing process. It won’t happen in an instant, the therapist said.

The information will be used to enhance the retreat Dr Savery plans to hold this autumn.

She feels there is a need, especially as there were a number of women who contacted her saying they wanted to attend but could not for various reasons.

“There’s a huge need in Bermuda. I’m thinking about the women who reached out to me searching for support but unfortunately weren’t able to come because of dates, because of finances, because of life stresses.

“There’s joy in healing. I feel like when people think about group therapy, when they think about trauma therapy, they’re imagining us just sitting around in a group crying, kind of sitting in your pain.

“There are moments when that happens, there are moments when we are thinking about the past and we’re trying to work through it. But there are moments when we laugh and we dance and we play, where we sat and looked at the beach and we had good food.

“I feel people should know there’s a balance and that’s what coming to a healing retreat offers you.”

Dr Savery recommends that anyone interested in joining her at her next retreat in November should start planning for it now. Payment plans are available. For more information visit taprootpsychology.com