Survivors of Incest Anonymous

1. Introduction

Version followed: Survivors of Incest Anonymous World Service Office (SIA WSO) materials as published on siawso.org in 2026: the SIA 12 Steps, 12 Promises (two versions), newcomer FAQ and history pages, and the World Wide Virtual Meetings (WWVM) "12 Guidelines for Safe Sharing" reference and training manual (approved 15 January 2022, updated 14 October 2025). Clinician procedures are my own [synthesis] unless tagged otherwise.

What it is. SIA is a mutual-help twelve-step fellowship, not a therapy. No clinician runs it. It is for adults (18 and over) who were sexually abused as children. It started in January 1982 in Baltimore, when three women survivors met at a kitchen table and adopted the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step model. The site credits one of them, co-founder Linda D; the other two are not named. A 1984 "Dear Abby" letter brought SIA national attention. [source: SIA History; SIA FAQ] Wikipedia adds that the founders drew on AA, OA and Al-Anon, and that SIA merged with Sexual Abuse Anonymous (Long Beach, 1987) and Sex Abuse Anonymous (St Cloud, 1989). [source: Wikipedia; uncertain: these mergers do not appear on the SIA pages]

Who it is for. The only requirement is having been sexually abused as a child and wanting to recover. SIA defines "incest" broadly. It covers sexual contact by family, extended family or step-family, and by trusted people such as family friends, teachers, coaches, clergy or another child. Covert behaviour, grooming and conditioning count, and "Penetration is not necessary". Members need no proof and no clear memories. Perpetrators may not attend any meeting. Survivors who were forced to abuse other children are not treated as perpetrators. [source: SIA FAQ; SIA home]

How change is thought to happen (as SIA presents it). Members break isolation and secrecy by hearing other survivors and sharing their own experience in a safe group. They work twelve steps adapted to the abuse and its effects, with support from a sponsor or co-sponsor. They rely on a "Loving Higher Power" as each understands it, and later give service to other survivors. The Promises describe the outcomes members hope for: safety, less self-blame and toxic shame, freedom from the perpetrator's hold, and ease with intimacy. [source: SIA 12 Steps; SIA 12 Promises; SIA FAQ] SIA says plainly that it "is not a replacement for therapy when needed". The clinician's job is to assess fit, refer, prepare the client, coordinate, and help the client use the fellowship alongside treatment. [source: SIA FAQ]

2. Framework

SIA publishes no phases or session counts. Below, the fellowship's own structures are tagged [source]. The clinician-side pathway is [synthesis].

Fellowship structures [source: SIA FAQ, home, step-study listing, Wikipedia]

• Meetings. Usually weekly and run by survivors, in person, online (Independent Virtual Meetings; the World Wide Virtual Meetings group on Zoom) or by phone (daily phone meetings). Formats are speaker, topic discussion, or literature meetings, chosen by group conscience. Meetings are closed (members only) or open (supporters may come too). Wikipedia also reports women-only and men-only meetings.
• Step-study meetings. One published example is a weekly 75-minute online group that works through all twelve steps in about 17 weeks, then repeats. Steps 1 and 4 get extra weeks. "Step 0" (orientation) weeks come before and after each cycle. It uses the SIA 12×12 pamphlet.
• Sponsorship. A more experienced member supports another through calls, messages or a structured walk through the steps.
• Service. Roles include facilitator or chair, host, secretary, treasurer, Group Service Representative (GSR), intergroup, World Service Conference committees and the WSO Board. [source: SIA Service]

Clinician pathway [synthesis]

The FAQ backs phase C's "try several meetings" advice: it tells newcomers to try different meetings to find the best fit. [source: SIA FAQ]

3. Guiding principles

Principles the fellowship publishes

• Single requirement, broad definition [source: FAQ]: no one is turned away as "not bad enough" or "too horrible". Never imply a client's abuse doesn't qualify.
• No proof needed; SIA is not a court [source: FAQ]: the client's word is enough. The group neither investigates nor confronts perpetrators.
• No perpetrators [source: FAQ; Guideline 1]: perpetrators are excluded, and adult perpetrating behaviour is not discussed. Refer clients who have offended elsewhere. Clients who harmed others as teenagers take that to a sponsor or therapist, not to the meeting.
• Shared, rotating leadership [source: FAQ; Service]: facilitators are fellow survivors who read the format. Nobody in the room is a clinician or an authority.
• Confidentiality and anonymity are "essential" [source: FAQ; Guideline 8]: first names or pseudonyms only, and nothing said in a meeting is repeated outside it.
• Voluntary speaking [source: FAQ]: members may always pass. Newcomers or anyone in crisis may share early.
• No advice [source: FAQ; Guideline 9]: "no advice is ever given". There is no crosstalk, comment or unsolicited comfort. Clients will not get feedback in the meeting.
• Own experience, "I" statements [source: FAQ; Guideline 3]: members speak in the first person. Members with multiple parts may say "we" if they say so first.
• Warn before graphic content [source: Guideline 4]: explicit details and profanity need a warning and a pause first.
• Triggers are expected; members manage their own [source: Guideline 10]: members mute, step away, set boundaries or comfort their inner child. They do not ask others to change.
• No romantic or sexual advances [source: Guideline 12]: this applies to members in and out of meetings. It protects clients who may be vulnerable to re-exploitation.
• A sponsor is "not an authority figure" [source: FAQ]: clients choose their own supports and set their own boundaries.
• Spiritual, Higher Power as understood [source: 12 Steps]: "Loving Higher Power" language. The client defines what that means.
• Self-supporting, no dues [source: FAQ]: contributions are voluntary.
• Attraction rather than promotion [source: Service]: SIA does not recruit. The clinician gives information; the client chooses.
• Not a replacement for therapy [source: FAQ]: the two are complementary, and the clinician keeps clinical responsibility.

Clinician stance [synthesis]

• Refer, don't run: describe the fellowship accurately and stay out of its internal workings. Don't attend the client's meetings or contact the sponsor without consent.
• Client choice: attendance is never a condition of treatment, and stopping is not "failure".
• Phase-sensitive: trauma-focused step work (Steps 4–5, 8–9) is paced to the client's stabilisation, as with any trauma processing.
• Memory neutrality: SIA accepts members without clear memories. The therapist still avoids suggestive memory recovery, and does not use group narratives to "confirm" uncertain memories.
• Translate, don't overrule: help the client find a reading of program language (powerlessness, surrender, amends, defects) that is non-blaming and fits their therapy goals.

4. Intervention inventory

SIA is a fellowship. Part A covers its own tools as SIA publishes them, written so a clinician can explain them accurately and help the client use them. The clinician does not deliver these. Part B covers the clinician procedures for referring to SIA and working alongside it [synthesis]. I have not reproduced the Steps, Traditions, Promises, Serenity Prayer or SIA literature; all wording below is paraphrase.

Part A — Fellowship tools (as published by SIA)

A1. The regular meeting (speaker, topic or literature)

• Purpose / when: The core tool. It breaks isolation and secrecy, and members hear others with similar histories. Weekly attendance is the norm. [source: FAQ; home]
• Steps (as the client will experience them): (1) A survivor facilitator reads the group's format. Formats vary by group and SIA says there is no single correct one. (2) Members introduce themselves by first name or pseudonym. A common form is "I'm (name), and I'm an incest survivor." (3) Program readings may follow, such as the Steps, Traditions or safety guidelines [uncertain: exact order varies; no full meeting script is drawn on]. (4) There is a speaker share, a topic, or a literature reading, followed by sharing in turn. Sharing may be time-limited (one example is 5 minutes). Members can say "I pass". (5) A 7th Tradition collection is taken; giving is voluntary. (6) After the meeting, members may talk one-to-one and swap numbers. [source: FAQ; GFSS; Service]
• Example language (illustrative): "You'll hear a reading, then people take turns talking about their own experience. You can just listen. Saying 'I pass' is completely normal."
• Watch for: Shame about whether one "qualifies". Being overwhelmed by other people's stories. Confusion when nobody responds to their share (that is the no-crosstalk rule).
• Working when: The client comes back, reports feeling less alone, and starts to share or connect after the meeting.

A2. Open, closed and special-population meetings; modes of attendance

• Purpose / when: Matching the client to a setting they can tolerate. [source: FAQ; home; Wikipedia]
• Steps: (1) Closed meetings are survivors only; open meetings also admit supporters. (2) Women-only and men-only meetings are reported [source: Wikipedia; uncertain: not confirmed on the SIA pages]. (3) Modes: in person; Independent Virtual Meetings; the WWVM Zoom group; daily phone meetings; retreats and conferences (a women's retreat is scheduled for June 2027). (4) Find meetings through the SIA meeting directory and calendar.
• Example language (illustrative): "If a room full of people feels like too much, a phone meeting with your camera off is a legitimate way to start."
• Watch for: Gender of attendees as a trigger. Online privacy: someone else in the household overhearing.
• Working when: The client settles on a format they can attend regularly.

A3. The 12 Guidelines for Safe Sharing (WWVM)

• Purpose / when: The WWVM group's published rules for keeping meetings safe. Other groups may use their own safety guidelines [uncertain: SIA lists generic "Safety Guidelines" downloads]. The WWVM text says they also apply to member contact outside meetings. [source: GFSS]
• Content (paraphrased): (1) No discussion of adult perpetrating behaviour. Abuse the sharer committed as a teenager goes to a sponsor, recovery partner or therapist. (2) You may identify with another person's share but do not name them. (3) Use "I" statements. People with multiple parts may use "we" if they say so first and give a trigger alert. (4) Announce any non-SIA literature before using it. Give a trigger warning and pause before explicit abuse details or profanity. (5) Strong emotion is welcome; self-harm, hitting and throwing things are not. (6) No hostility towards groups by gender, ethnicity, orientation, religion or disability. Anger goes to the actual perpetrator. (7) No name-calling, gossip or airing conflicts. (8) Anonymity inside and outside meetings. (9) No crosstalk: no interrupting, commenting, unsolicited advice or comfort. Thanking someone by name is allowed. (10) Expect to be triggered and look after yourself. Don't treat other members as abusers or ask them to change their voice, clothes or words. The manual uses the saying "If it's hysterical, it's historical." (11) Keep devices muted. No screenshots, and no recording without permission. (12) No romantic or sexual advances. The one exception is long-standing friends who have worked the steps; even then, separate meetings are strongly recommended. Members who have been drinking, using or are over-medicated should listen rather than share.
• Enforcement steps: (1) Accidental breach: the moderator lets the share finish, then gently rereads the guideline. (2) If the moderator doesn't, any member may ask for the reread. (3) The host or secretary interrupts mid-share only in two cases: explicit perpetration content, or graphic content without a warning while listeners are getting triggered; or a share running more than 30 seconds over time. (4) Someone who keeps disrupting may be asked to leave until they own the behaviour. (5) If the same guideline is breached repeatedly, the group may hold a Group Conscience Safety Check: members read the guideline, discuss it and vote [uncertain: full GCSC procedure].
• Example language (illustrative): "The meeting has rules for exactly the thing you're afraid of. Graphic details need a warning first, and you're allowed to mute or step out."
• Watch for: Clients who read a guideline reread as personal shaming. Clients who will need the "we" provision (dissociative clients).
• Working when: The client feels the rules keep them safe and can use the self-care options in Guideline 10.

A4. Sponsorship (sponsor, co-sponsor, "fellow traveller")

• Purpose / when: One-to-one peer support and guidance through the steps, usually once the client attends regularly. [source: FAQ]
• Steps: (1) The client listens for members whose recovery they respect and asks one of them after a meeting. (2) They agree the form of support: regular calls, messages, or a structured walk through the 12 Steps. (3) The client keeps the right to choose, change and set boundaries. SIA says a sponsor is "not an authority figure".
• Example language (illustrative): "What would you need from a sponsor, and what's off-limits? Let's write your boundaries down before you ask anyone."
• Watch for: Old patterns repeating with a sponsor: idealisation, compliance, secrecy. A sponsor giving clinical or legal advice. Any sexual or romantic interest (Guideline 12).
• Working when: The client uses the sponsor between sessions and keeps their own boundaries.

A5. Working the SIA Twelve Steps

• Purpose / when: The program's structured recovery path, which the step-study listing calls "the backbone of the program". It is worked with a sponsor or in a step-study group. [source: 12 Steps; step-study listing]
• Steps (paraphrased themes from SIA's wording):
  • 1. Admit that the abuse and its aftermath were beyond your control and made life unmanageable.
  • 2. Come to trust that a loving Higher Power can bring healing, hope and clarity.
  • 3. Decide to entrust your will and life to that Higher Power as you understand it.
  • 4. Take an honest inventory of yourself, the abuse and its effects, and end secrecy.
  • 5. Share your strengths and weaknesses with your Higher Power, yourself and one trusted person.
  • 6. Become willing to let go of the abuse's lasting harms and to treat yourself with respect and compassion.
  • 7. Ask your Higher Power to remove the self-defeating effects of the abuse.
  • 8. By your own free choice, list the people you have harmed, including yourself and your inner child(ren), and become willing to make amends.
  • 9. Make amends where possible, unless doing so would cause physical, mental or emotional harm to you or others.
  • 10. Keep taking responsibility, notice old abuse-driven patterns, admit them promptly, and celebrate successes.
  • 11. Deepen contact with yourself and your Higher Power through prayer and meditation.
  • 12. Carry the message to other survivors and practise these principles everywhere.
• Survivor-specific adaptations: Powerlessness is over the abuse, not a substance. Step 5 includes strengths as well as faults. The self and inner child are on the amends list. The amends exception covers psychological harm. No step requires contact with, or amends to, the abuser. [source: 12 Steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "In SIA's version you are on your own amends list. You're not on the hook to make amends to the person who abused you."
• Watch for: Reading Step 1 or the "defects" language as self-blame. Step 4 writing that turns into uncontained trauma exposure. Step 9 amends that put the client back in contact with abusive family. See B5–B7.
• Working when: Step work produces self-compassion and less secrecy, without a rise in symptoms.

A6. Step-study groups

• Purpose / when: A group that works the steps on a fixed schedule. Useful for clients without a sponsor or who prefer structure. [source: step-study listing]
• Steps (published example): Weekly 75-minute online meetings. "Step 0" orientation sessions come first. Then Step 1 (two weeks), Steps 2 and 3 (one week each), Step 4 (three weeks), Steps 5–12 (one week each), and closing Step 0 weeks. The group uses the SIA 12×12 pamphlet and repeats the cycle about every four months. The listing does not say what writing is set between sessions.
• Example language (illustrative): "The Step 4 weeks are the heavy ones. Let's plan our sessions around them."
• Watch for: The pace (three weeks for the inventory) may be faster than the client's trauma work allows. They can repeat the cycle.
• Working when: The client keeps up the work without crises.

A7. The Promises

• Purpose / when: Hope statements describing what recovery looks like. Read at some meetings. [source: 12 Promises]
• Content (paraphrased): SIA publishes two versions. The survivor-specific one speaks of lasting freedom and calm; revisiting memories without losing the inner child; learning what safety and fearless sleep feel like; wholeness whatever the abuse; self-respect replacing self-blame and toxic shame; release from disgust and from the perpetrator's hold; and ease with love, sexuality and intimacy. The second version is adapted from AA's promises.
• Clinical use [synthesis]: Ask which promise the client most wants. Turn it into a concrete therapy goal (for example, "sleep without fear" becomes a sleep and nightmare target).
• Watch for: Despair or self-blame when the promises haven't come true yet. Frame them as aspirations, not deadlines.

A8. Slogans, Serenity Prayer, readings and SIA literature

• Purpose / when: Short reminders for coping between meetings. [source: home; FAQ; GFSS]
• Details: The program uses slogans and the Serenity Prayer (not reproduced here). SIA literature is written by and for members and is sold through the WSO shop in seven languages. It includes the 12 Steps & 12 Traditions PDF and a meditation book ("What Helps You Heal?"). Free downloads include meeting formats, best-practice guides, safety guidelines and flyers [uncertain]. Members must announce non-SIA material before quoting it in a meeting. The full list of SIA slogans is [uncertain].
• Watch for: Clients for whom prayer language is alienating or tied to abuse in a religious setting. See B4.

A9. Phone lists and outreach between meetings

• Purpose / when: Support between meetings and in hard moments. [source: FAQ]
• Steps: After the meeting the client may ask a member to talk privately and exchange numbers. They then reach out by call or message, respecting Guideline 7 (communication boundaries) and Guideline 8 (anonymity in messages).
• Watch for: Peer contacts being used instead of crisis services when the client is at acute risk. See B9.

A10. Service

• Purpose / when: Step 12 work and a way to build belonging and competence, usually after some time in recovery. [source: Service; FAQ]
• Roles: Set-up and literature; facilitator or chair; host; secretary; treasurer; GSR; intergroup; World Service Conference committees (for example Outreach and Literature); WSO email responder. Members in long-term recovery who have worked the steps can ask about joining the Board.
• Watch for: Taking on service to please others, or to avoid one's own work [synthesis].

Part B — Clinician procedures for referring and working alongside SIA [synthesis]

SIA publishes no guidance for clinicians. Everything in Part B is my own synthesis, built on SIA's published rules (Part A) and standard trauma-informed practice.

B1. Assessing fit

• Purpose / when: Before suggesting SIA to an adult client with a history of childhood sexual abuse.
• Steps: (1) Check eligibility: the client is 18 or over, was sexually abused as a child (SIA's definition is broad), and wants to recover. (2) Screen out or redirect anyone with current or past adult perpetrating behaviour. Such clients may not attend and need offence-specific services. (3) Assess current stability: suicidality, self-harm, substance use (Guideline 5 bars self-harm in meetings, and members under the influence listen rather than share), severe dissociation, and acute PTSD symptoms. (4) Explore the client's attitude to groups, to spiritual language, and to anonymity. (5) Check practical issues: privacy at home for online or phone meetings, time zone, language (literature exists in seven languages).
• Example language (illustrative): "There's a free peer fellowship run by survivors, for survivors. Nobody has to prove anything to join. Can I tell you how it works, and you decide if it fits?"
• Watch for: The client agreeing to please you. Ongoing contact with the perpetrator or current danger, which needs a safety plan before any group work.
• Working when: The client makes an informed choice either way.

B2. Preparing the client for the first meeting

• Steps: (1) Walk through A1 and A3 together: introductions, passing, no crosstalk, trigger warnings, muting or leaving. (2) Make a trigger plan: a grounding skill, permission to leave, someone to contact afterwards. (3) Choose a lower-intensity first meeting: listening only, a literature meeting, or a phone or camera-off meeting. (4) Agree a debrief in the next session. (5) Remind the client that SIA's own advice is to try several meetings before deciding.
• Example language (illustrative): "Your only job at the first meeting is to notice how your body is doing. Sharing is optional."
• Watch for: Anticipatory dread, or the plan turning into avoidance.
• Working when: The client attends and can describe what happened.

B3. Debriefing meetings in session

• Steps: (1) Ask what the client noticed: identification, relief, triggers, urges. (2) Look at any triggers using Guideline 10's idea that strong present reactions often carry old feelings. Work on them as therapy material. (3) Note which formats helped. (4) Revisit the coping plan.
• Example language (illustrative): "When someone shared and you went numb, what happened just before that?"
• Watch for: The client repeating other members' disclosures in session. Gently keep to their own experience to respect Guideline 8.

B4. Translating program language

• Purpose / when: When Step 1, surrender, prayer, "defects" or amends wording clashes with therapy goals or triggers religious abuse.
• Steps: (1) Ask what the word means to the client. (2) Point out SIA's own framing: powerlessness is over the abuse and its effects, not a moral failing; Higher Power is "as we understood" (group, nature, inner wisdom, or a loving God); Step 5 includes strengths. (3) Help the client write their own working version for personal use. (4) If the language stays unworkable, consider other options (B10).
• Example language (illustrative): "Admitting you couldn't control what happened to you as a child isn't the same as saying you're powerless now."
• Watch for: Self-blame passed through the language of "defects". This is the risk the critics flag (Armstrong, cited in Wikipedia) [uncertain].

B5. Pacing Steps 4–5 alongside trauma treatment

• Steps: (1) Ask the client to tell you when the inventory begins. (2) Agree containment strategies: time limits on writing, grounding afterwards, no writing just before bed. (3) Separate the inventory of abuse effects from detailed trauma narrative work. Keep the detailed processing for therapy, within a phase-based plan. (4) For Step 5, check the "trusted person" is safe and has boundaries. The client chooses whether that is a sponsor or the therapist.
• Watch for: Rising nightmares, dissociation, self-harm urges or sleep loss. If they appear, slow down. Repeating the step-study cycle later is legitimate.

B6. Steps 8–9 (amends) safety review

• Steps: (1) Note that SIA's Step 8 puts the self and inner child on the list, and that no step requires contact with the abuser. (2) Review each planned amend for physical, mental or emotional risk; Step 9's own exception covers this. (3) Do not confront or contact family as part of amends without a separate safety plan. That is a distinct therapeutic and possibly legal decision. (4) Encourage self-directed amends: self-care, ending self-harm, repairing self-neglect.
• Watch for: Pressure from anyone to "make amends" or "forgive" abusers. That is not in SIA's wording.

B7. Survivors who harmed others

• Steps: (1) If the client harmed others as an adolescent, Guideline 1 sends that material to a sponsor, recovery partner or therapist, not the meeting. Offer a confidential space for it in therapy. (2) SIA does not treat survivors forced by adults to abuse other children as perpetrators. Use this to address shame. (3) For any current or adult perpetrating behaviour, follow your jurisdiction's mandatory reporting and duty-to-protect rules, and refer to specialist services. Such clients are not eligible for SIA.

B8. Coordinating with a sponsor (with consent)

• Steps: (1) Coordinate only with written consent. Most clients will relay information themselves; direct contact is rarely needed. (2) Keep roles clear: the sponsor is a peer, the therapist holds clinical care. (3) Agree with the client what they will and won't take to each.
• Watch for: Splitting ("my sponsor says therapy is unnecessary"). Address it openly with the client rather than with the sponsor.

B9. Crisis and risk planning

• Steps: (1) Write a safety plan that names SIA contacts as support, not as the crisis service. (2) Include professional crisis lines and emergency services. (3) Use standard suicide risk assessment and lethal-means counselling (safe storage, removal) if risk rises after meetings or step work.

B10. Choosing among SIA and other options

• Steps: If SIA doesn't fit (spiritual language, group format, schedule), consider: individual trauma therapy alone; therapist-led survivor groups; or other fellowships the client may already know. ASCA (Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) also has published meeting materials [source: search results only; uncertain]. Respect the client's choice.

5. Handling problems

SIA's published sources cover in-meeting conduct (the Guidelines for Safe Sharing and their enforcement). Everything clinician-facing below is [synthesis] unless tagged otherwise.

• Overwhelm or flashbacks during a meeting. SIA's guidance: expect triggers; mute, step away, set boundaries, comfort your inner child [source: Guideline 10]. Clinician: rehearse grounding before meetings; agree that leaving early counts as success; switch to listen-only, literature or phone meetings for a while; treat the trigger as therapy material. [synthesis]
• Graphic sharing by others. Members must give a warning and pause first. The host may interrupt if there was no warning and listeners are getting triggered [source: Guidelines 4B and enforcement]. Clinician: teach the client to use the pause to mute or step out. If one meeting is persistently unsafe, help the client find another. [synthesis]
• Client doubts they "qualify" (not bad enough, covert abuse, unclear memories). SIA turns no one away on these grounds and needs no proof [source: FAQ]. Clinician: validate that they are eligible. Don't use the group to confirm or build memories. Process uncertainty about memories neutrally in therapy. [synthesis]
• Non-attendance or dropping out. SIA's guidance is to keep coming and try other meetings [source: FAQ]. Clinician: explore what got in the way (shame, a trigger, the format, logistics). Problem-solve one barrier. Accept a decision to stop without pressure, since attendance is not a treatment requirement. [synthesis]
• Resistance to spiritual or Step 1 language. Use B4. Feminist critics have argued that the twelve-step framework can individualise or moralise abuse (Naples 2003; Armstrong, via Wikipedia) [uncertain]. Take this seriously with clients who share the concern, and offer non-twelve-step options. [synthesis]
• Feeling unsupported because nobody responds (no crosstalk). Explain that this is a deliberate safety rule [source: Guideline 9]. Encourage after-meeting contact and sponsorship for personal feedback. [synthesis]
• Sexual or romantic advances, grooming-like behaviour, or exploitation by another member. These are prohibited [source: Guideline 12; Guideline 7]. Clinician: name the pattern, support the client to set a boundary, and help them raise it with the facilitator or group conscience. Advise changing meetings if needed. If a crime or a risk to a child is involved, follow reporting duties. [synthesis]
• A perpetrator or suspected perpetrator at a meeting. SIA policy excludes perpetrators from all meetings [source: FAQ]. Wikipedia reports that some groups have admitted perpetrators who are not currently offending if this is announced [uncertain: conflicts with the current FAQ; may be historical]. Clinician: the client can leave, tell the facilitator or WSO, and choose another meeting. [synthesis]
• Anonymity breach, screenshots or recordings. These are prohibited [source: Guidelines 8 and 11]. Clinician: assess the practical risk (employer, family, legal proceedings). Help the client raise it with the group. Revise their online privacy settings. [synthesis]
• Conflict with members or a guideline being reread at them. Rereads are meant to be gentle and non-shaming. Repeated problems go to a Group Conscience Safety Check [source: GFSS enforcement]. Clinician: separate shame from information. Rehearse "I" statements for group conscience discussions. [synthesis]
• Problems with a sponsor (control, advice to stop therapy or medication, boundary violations). SIA: a sponsor is "not an authority figure" and members choose their own supports [source: FAQ]. Clinician: support the client in changing sponsors. Restate that SIA itself says it doesn't replace therapy. [synthesis]
• Rupture with the therapist ("the group understands me, you don't"). Validate the value of peer identification. Explore what the client is missing in therapy. Repair openly, and avoid competing with the fellowship. [synthesis]
• Destabilisation during Steps 4–5 or amends planning. Slow down using B5 and B6. Postpone detailed inventory writing until the client is more stable. Never support amends that expose the client to an abuser. [synthesis]
• Over-involvement (many meetings a day, service replacing life goals or therapy). Review balance against the client's values. Fellowship can be one support among several. [synthesis]
• Suicidality or self-harm. SIA bars self-harm in meetings [source: Guideline 5] and offers peer support only. Clinician: standard risk assessment, a safety plan, crisis services, and lethal-means counselling (storage and removal). Peer contacts are an addition, never a substitute. [synthesis]
• Dissociative clients or parts language. SIA explicitly allows "we" with an alert first [source: Guideline 3]. Clinician: plan which part attends and how to orient afterwards. Watch for switching or losing time in meetings. [synthesis]
• Substance use. Members who have been drinking, using or are over-medicated should listen, not share [source: GFSS]. Clinician: treat co-occurring use, and consider adding a substance-specific fellowship or treatment. [synthesis]
• Client turns out to have perpetrated abuse. Not eligible for SIA [source: FAQ]. Clinician: follow reporting and duty-to-protect law, refer to offence-specific services, and keep the therapeutic frame clear. [synthesis]

Sources

Sources:

• Welcome To SIA (SIA WSO home)
• SIA FAQ — What is SIA?
• Our History (SIA)
• Welcome To SIA — You Are Not Alone
• WWVM 12 Guidelines For Safe Sharing Reference & Training Manual
• 12 Steps Of SIA
• 12 Promises Of SIA
• 12 Steps & 12 Traditions (SIA shop listing)
• Step study meeting, open to all, 12 steps in 4 months (Zoom)
• SIA Service
• Survivors of Incest Anonymous — Wikipedia (secondary)

Further reading (not drawn on), cited via the pages above [uncertain]:

• Naples, N. A. (2003). Deconstructing and locating survivor discourse: Dynamics of narrative, empowerment, and resistance for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Signs, 28(4), 1151–1185.
• Salmon, R. F. (1995). Therapist's guide to 12-step meetings for sexual dependencies. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 2(3), 193–213.
• Armstrong, L. (critique of survivor self-help movements, as summarised by Wikipedia; exact work not verified).

Further reading (not drawn on): the SIA Group Conscience Safety Check page, the WWVM newcomers page, the downloadable meeting formats and safety guidelines, the SIA 12×12 pamphlet text, and the SIA slogan list.