The Emotional Health and Wellness group was founded by H. Ameeta Singh, LMFT in 2008 at San Quentin.  She created a safe, supportive environment for men to come together to explore and heal emotional trauma.

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The Emotional Health and Wellness group offers a safe space for members to identify and explore:

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• The different woundings/traumatic experiences we have had in our lives

• How these woundings have impacted our decision making and life choices in the past and currently

• What coping strategies we have evolved - healthy and unhealthy - to manage the emotional and psychological impacts of these traumatic experiences

• How to create healing for unresolved woundings/experiences

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This group runs every Thursday for 26 weeks.  It requires participants to:

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• Engage in active self-exploration and self-reflection

• Be willing to explore sometimes painful experiences as part of healing

• Commit to attending once a week for the full 26 weeks

• Do assigned reading and homework on a weekly basis

• Be active and engaged group members 

• Be willing to be emotionally vulnerable and take emotional risks in service of healing 

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Hieu Nguyen, (now released) T.R.U.S.T. Fellow and Co-Facilitator

Emotional Health and Wellness

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"My name is Hieu Nguyen. I am an inmate at San Quentin State Prison. I was convicted of 2nd degree murder and was sentenced to 23 years to life. 

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This is my 19th year of my incarceration. I have been with T.R.U.S.T. since 2013. I joined Health and Wellness in 2015. Currently, I am a facilitator for this workshop. Health and Wellness is a self-help group that gives incarcerated men like me the opportunity to explore our past.

 

In this workshop, the participants learn the roots of where their anger comes from. They begin to understand the unresolved trauma issues in their lives that led them to commit their crimes. It also gives the participants the tools and coping skills to deal with their triggers.

 

As for me, I applied everything I learned from this workshop and use it with my daily life. It keeps me staying sober and prevents me going back to the person I once was before."

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