Childhood Sexual Abuse: Surviving
Do you need help to deal with sexual abuse as a child?
Sexual abuse of children is a serious problem that has life-long consequences. These consequences go much further than the immediate trauma observed in child victims. A non-complaining, apparently normal child may be suffering grotesquely perverse sexual assault in the company of a caretaker who is conspicuously trustworthy and who seems to the outside world incapable of malice or perversion. The adult survivors frequently experience impaired self esteem, basic trust, intimacy, sexual function and mental health.
The key objective of psychotherapy with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, is to foster healing and growth by working through the reactions to the abuse experience and in that process, developing an understanding of the effects the abuse and its aftermath have had upon their psychological functioning, their relationships and their current experiences of life and living.
In working psychotherapeutically with adults who have endured the experience of sexual abuse, it is important to provide a safe environment that will allow the individual to acknowledge and begin to process the memories and the associated pain they have experienced so that the experiences of abuse no longer have the power to control behaviour and responses. This process enables the individual to take control of their own life and living.
