Dear Katie: Survivor Stories

S7E21 Understanding Trauma from Prisons to Veterans

'Most people are good people... [they] most of the time have just been through horrific trauma.'

Dr. Renee Rosiecki is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in trauma-informed care. She has worked in various settings, including non-profits, correctional facilities, outpatient behavioral health, a hospital system, and a medication-assisted treatment facility. Her work has focused on survivors, from responding to college crises as an RA to serving as a Confidential Sexual Violence Advocate for a community Sexual Assault Response Team. Renee believes in justice for all victims of violence, including those who are incarcerated, and she continues to fight to make this justice a reality. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

Re:wind to Re:process Track S2E6 Centered Safety (Special Guest: Aishah Shahidah Simmons)

Listen and learn from our fantastic special guest in this classic interview on the Dear Katie Podcast. 

In this week's episode, Claire and Katie sit down with Aishah Shahidah Simmons to discuss her survivorship, and the trauma and healing that would develop her artistic voice. Aishah’s lived experiences as a survivor of childhood and adult sexual violence, a Black feminist lesbian, and a long-term Buddhist practitioner inform the creation of her work.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons (she/her) is the creator of the 2006 groundbreaking Ford Foundation-funded film, NO! The Rape Documentary, and the editor of the 2020 Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse.  Presently, she is a Soros Media Fellow completing her trilogy of cultural work that uses storytelling as a praxis to heal from, disrupt, and end sexual violence without relying on the carceral state.

Hosts: Katie Koestner and Claire Kaplan

Editor: Kelsey Styles

Producers: Kelsey Styles and Emily Wang

S7E20 Quantum Leap Healing

'The body just reignites the horrible experience. It's just like you're there.'

Sanar Alixandyr is an Empowerment Coach whose mission is to uplift, support, and heal the planet by empowering those who are ready to step into their greatness and become their most powerful, authentic selves. Her passion is being of service to the greater vision of the transformation and evolution of women in the world and offers her own story, "Becoming Sanar" From Shadow to Light: A Journey of Self-Discovery, as an inspirational and healing experience for anyone who is ready to let go of their own personal past.
A Woman of Wisdom, Sanar was once described as a member of the First Wave of Healers to embark on this mission. She is happy to share her wisdom with those who are searching and finds it remarkable that she is discovering a whole New Wave of powerful women, ready to shine their Light and change the world!

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E19 On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence

Dr. Nicole Bedera is a sociologist and author of the book On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence. Her research broadly focuses on how our social structures contribute to survivors’ trauma and make sexual violence more likely to occur in the future. Her scholarship has influenced sexual violence prevention programming across the country and her work has been featured in many popular outlets, including The New York Times, NPR, Time Magazine, and Teen Vogue. Nicole puts her work into practice as an affiliated educator at the Center for Institutional Courage and co-founder of Beyond Compliance Consulting.

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E18 The Authority Gap: Researching the Roots of Gender Inequities

Mary Ann Sieghart is a journalist, broadcaster, author, TED speaker, and consultant. Her bestselling book, The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It came out in 2021 and has struck a chord around the world, resonating with many women devalued in working spaces. She is a Visiting Professor at the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London and was Chair of the Judges for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2022. Her mission is to close the authority gap in as many workplaces as possible, and she has now set up The Authority Gap Consultancy to help organisations do just that.

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E17 Iceland's Wonderwoman of Survivorship

Svava Brooks is a survivor of child sexual abuse and the co-founder of a nationwide child sexual abuse prevention and education organization in Iceland called “Blátt áfram.” She is also a certified instructor and facilitator for Darkness to Light Stewards of Children, as well as a certified Crisis Intervention Specialist, a certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator, a BellaNet Teen support group facilitator, a Certified TRE® Provider, and a Trauma Recovery Coach. The mother of three children, Svava has dedicated her life to ending the cycle of child sexual abuse through education, awareness, and by helping survivors heal and thrive. She is a certified facilitator for Advance!, a program created by Connections to restore authentic identity. Every week, she writes about healing after trauma on her blog and also leads a discussion forum on child sexual abuse healing and recovery online, in her private Facebook groups and on her YouTube channel. After living in the US for 30 years, Svava now lives in Iceland and has a thriving practice offering somatic healing through TRE, and now has two self-published workbooks for survivors available on Amazon. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

Re:wind to Re:process Track S4E9 Soul Singing & Pyschotherapy

Find new insights from this classic episode featuring Greg Kolwicz and Marcel Anderson. 

As a boy, Greg was groomed by an older friend, who showed him pornography for the first time and pushed him to engage in sexual acts. He struggled to accept that this abuse happened to him as a man and couldn’t share his experience for a decade.

As a young adult, Marcel suffered intense physical and sexual abuse after being held at gunpoint by an invader. His faith allowed him to survive the traumatizing experience that left him hospitalized. 

Greg and Marcel are bound by survivorship; today, they both are advocates for male victims of sexual assault and use their voices to shatter the stereotypes about sexual violence. In this special episode, we share two different stories to spark a discussion about the shared steps in their journeys of pain and healing.

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Benter Oluoch

Producers: Emily Wang and Luiza Leite

S7E16 Jurisdiction and Justice in Antigua

'The adrenaline in my body was like nothing I've ever felt.' 

Ten years ago, Derrick's world was rocked when his daughter was raped by a police officer. Fighting for justice in a system built against survivors, he pushes to have her voice heard. Derrick walks us through the experience of being a supportive parent during the aftermath of sexual assault, guiding us through the ways he cared for his daughter and fought for justice. 

Derrick Hurley is a proud husband and father of three daughters. He spent his 37-year career in the Retail Technology industry and left his career early to advocate for survivors after his oldest daughter was assaulted in 2015.  

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E15 The Daughter of the Rapist: Sexual Violence Has Many Victims

'Sometimes I don't want to be a warrior anymore.'

Dianne Braley is a Massachusetts-based, multi-award-winning author and nurse. During the process of writing her second novel, a person in her family was charged and convicted of sexual assault. This turned Dianne and her family's world on its head and led her to take on writing the book in the voice of a secondary victim, the perpetrator's daughter. Although fiction, this book was largely inspired by this horrific crime and the ensuing trial.

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E14 Taking Off Trauma's Sunglasses for 4 Hours

This week, walk through the inner workings of the mind with therapist Rachel Stanton. She shares how she works with clients to process traumatic memories and creates emotional safety to address difficult feelings. 

Rachel Stanton is a psychotherapist with a practice in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. She specializes in helping people heal after traumas like sexual assault, and offers EMDR intensives that help people get better in days, not years. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang