"They rise to a spiritual level when someone shares aspects of their recovery that touches everyone in the room. The "healing circle" was like that for me."

Thank you for sharing this Jim.  People need to understand these circles are not 'talk therapy groups'.  They are intended to build a group spiritual environment in which people feel safe enough to relive, at times in the moment, the pain they suffered and thus share that pain with a circle of people who become not just sharers in the story but actual witnesses to the pain. 

It's difficult to articulate what is actually built amongst people in healing circles, but done right, and by people who both know what they are doing and are themselves spiritual, they can be profoundly healing experiences.  The memories don't go away, but they are in some sense, transcended, integrated, and healed.