I remember work with a client who had experienced massive daily trauma growing up: parental violence, alcoholism, chaos, political violence, racism, poverty and neglect.
In a group session, we used an Inuit story about the choosing of a new shaman for the village. In the story the old Shaman choose the new one, who is then taken by spirits to an underworld and ritually tortured and broken by bad spirits. Then is remade by good spirits and brought back to the village.
This experience transforms the chosen one into the healer for the village. By enacting the story and playing the chosen one, the client was able to embody his/her tortuous and broken childhood as a possibility (of in the story becoming a healer) rather than a prison sentence.
The client was then able to extend this into his/her life and begin to reframe how he/she related to the world and begin to look for opportunities to change, transform and grow.