Empowerment Self Defense (ESD) works.

Women trained in ESD experience fewer and less severe completed assaults and fewer attempted assaults overall (Hollander 2014).Research of 451 women on three college campuses in Canada published in the New England Journal of Medicine found a 50% reduction in unwanted sexual contact, sexual coercion, attempted rape, and completed rape (Senn 2015).

ESD increases self-confidence and self-efficacy, perceived control, assertiveness, physical competence, and disclosure. It also decreases anxiety, fear, feelings of helplessness, and perhaps more importantly, self-blame (Breklin 2008 and Hollander 2014).

ESD contributes to trauma healing by:

  • Creating an environment that is explicitly safe. 
  • Giving participants opportunities to make active choices and express personal boundaries which are respected by others.
  • Teaching new responses to use in stressful situations (active coping).
  • Using mind/body techniques to become more aware of the body’s signals (interoceptive awareness).
  • Providing an opportunity to learn and practice personal safety skills, such as becoming more aware of danger cues and using active responses.
  • Offering safe and comforting experiences of working with others (social connection).
  • (Breklin 2008 and Hollander 2014).