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Whether
you know it or not, someone in your circle of family or friends has been a victim
of sexual abuse at one time or another. And if you are a psychologist, you quickly
realize that this is at the origin of a certain number of their difficulties.
For these bruised men and these bruised women, there will always be a "before"
and an "after" the abuse.
Our society often prefers to pretend unawareness
of this problem, to diminish the severity, even totally deny its existence. Or
perhaps, full of good intentions but also incompetence, "solutions"
are proposed to victims which only serve to worsen the trauma suffered.
In
this article, we respond to several question: What
do we mean by sexual abuse?
Why is it so hard for the victim
to talk about what happened?
What damage does sexual abuse
cause?
How to help the victim cope?
Who
are the abusers?
[return] What
do we mean by sexual abuse?
1. Duress or contact Sexual
abuse is any duress (verbal, visual or psychological) or any physical contact
by which a person uses a child, an adolescent or an adult to achieve sexual stimulation,
their own or that of a third person.
Physical contact is certainly more serious
than verbal duress. But you must know that any abuse always provokes a trauma
and is considered a violation of a sacred nature and of the person's integrity.
 Designated
verbal duress: a direct sexual solicitation; the use of sexual terms; subtle seduction;
insinuation. All of this vis-à-vis a person who doesn't want to hear it.
Visual duress concerns:
the use of pornographic materiel; staring at certain parts of the body; the act
of undressing, showing oneself naked, or to perform a sexual act in front of someone.
Once again, without the spectator wanting to see.
Designated psychological duress: the violation of the boundary between relational
and sexual (an excessive interest for the sexuality of one's child) or between
physical and sexual (repeated enemas; a too strong interest in the physical development
of an adolescent).
Physical contact may be:
fairly serious (kiss, touching the body through
clothes, whether or not force is used, with or without psychological or emotional
pressure),
serious (touching or manual penetration; simulation of the
sexual act, genital contact, all of this with or without physical violence), or
very serious (genital, anal or oral penetration, obtained in any manner,
with or without force).
2.
The strategy of the abuser Abuse
is not a random act by the person who commits it. Being a deviate, the abuser
premeditates and organizes the relationship while waiting for the moment where
his cruel fantasies seem to be feasible. Obviously, the victim ignores all of
this.
In general, this perverse strategy is made up of four phases:
a. The development of intimacy and of a relationship which seems privileged
and confidential
This phase, varying in length (from several hours to several
years), targets gaining the trust of the future victim who remains unaware.
b. A verbal interaction or a physical contact apparently "appropriate"
for the person who will be abused (secrets of a sexual nature, caressing hair,
amicable hugs). The person isn't afraid, and rightly so: in 29% of cases, the
future abuser is a member of the family, in 60% of cases; it is a friend or an
acquaintance. Only 11% of abuse cases are committed by a stranger.
c.
Sexual interaction or sexual contact
Strictly speaking, this is the phase
of abuse. Here, the victim finds herself in the same situation as a rabbit crossing
the road at night and caught in the headlights of a car: petrified, rooted, frozen,
incapable of reacting, he allows himself to be run over by the car. The abuser
is fully aware of what he is doing to his victim.
d. The continuation
of the abuse and obtaining the victim's silence by using shame, guilt, threats
or privileges.
This silence is rarely broken. The abuse remains an absolute
secret for a very long time.
Three survivors of the Dionne sisters, the famous
Canadian quintuplets, waited until their 60's to finally reveal in their biography
that they had been sexually abused by their father.
By maintaining silence,
the victim becomes, despite herself, an ally of her abuser, because the one thing
she dreads is to be denounced. The fact of becoming an ally, even involuntarily,
reinforces her self-contempt and guilt.
This will be one of the tasks of the
psychologist, to explain to the victim that a sexually abused person is never
guilty or responsible. The victim couldn't guess that the first two phases were
a strategy of the abuser.
The psychologist should also tell the victim that
a person who is under the domination of an abuser can only end the situation by
denouncing it and revealing what she has suffered. However, speaking about it
is very difficult for the victim for many reasons.
[return] Why
is it so difficult for a victim to speak about what she has suffered?
1.
It often takes a long time for the victim to realize that she has been abused.
Time
doesn't count for the unconscious; it's as if it has stopped for the victim: it
is often the appearance of symptoms such as depression or sexual problems which
incite the victim to finally allow her suffering to resurface and to accept speaking
about it. It's the first step toward healing.
But to talk about this trauma,
to become aware of this truth: "I was abused", can be a terrible shock.
The counselor will need tact and tremendous compassion to allow the victim to
rediscover at her own pace the extent of the drama that she has lived through.
The counselor will understand the extreme repugnance that the victim feels by
admitting that her body and soul have been ravaged. The victim wants so much never
to have lived that, to forget, that she will occasionally take refuge in denial:
"This couldn't have happened to me."
If you believe what she says,
the victim will be encouraged to continue to talk (the victim absolutely needs
to feel that she is believed). Also try and avoid certain destructive phrases
like:
- He just made a mistake, as we all do.
- It only happened once,
after all.
- It's time to turn the page.
- It happened so long ago.
2.
The victim feels guilty Deep
down, even without saying it openly, the person thinks:
- Wasn't it a little
bit my fault?
- Couldn't I have avoided it?
- Would someone else in my
situation have been able to resist, to fight back, to run away?
The
psychologist can make progress by asking questions that the victim can't express:
- Who held the power (parental, spiritual, moral, organizational, physical,
psychological)?
- Who was the adult? The social benchmark? The reference?
- Who was the instigator, the organizer of this abuse?
- Who could end it?
The therapist can help the victim understand that her guilt is linked to
the gap between the earlier life (and the reasons for which the victim couldn't
prevent being abused: her young age, her ignorance, her complete trust) and her
current life, when the victim is older, less ignorant, less naïve and knows
how to protect herself.
The victim believes she is guilty because she looks
at past events with the eyes of the informed adult that she is today. At the time
however, the victim didn't possess the necessary protections to prevent the abuse.
The therapist can also help the victim to differentiate the weak point that the
abuser exploited, for example a very legitimate need for tenderness or a blind
trust, and the crime that he committed by exploiting this legitimate need for
affection or trust, to satisfy his immoral desires.
Disconnecting these two
elements is often a moment of truth and a relief for the victim who takes the
second step toward healing when she no longer feels responsible.
But the road
to complete healing is still long. Haste and impatience are therefore strong enemies
of the therapist (and of the client) in this domain.
3.
Talking could cost a lot Each
time the abused person plunges back into the horror of the past, she must pay
a high price. By trying to "forget" the abuse, to turn the page, she
must construct a certain delicate balance, for example with close relatives.
If the victim decides to let the truth be known, she risks upsetting this invented
balance and to create tension with her close relations. The victim continues to
find "good advisors" who will accuse them of lying and exaggerating,
reproach the victim for bringing up the past and incite her to forget, even to
"forgive" because they are concerned about their own peace and quiet
and have a "what will everyone say" attitude; the worst danger is that
the victim risks being perceived as responsible for the abuse. Therefore, the
psychologist should support the victim, encourage her and assure her material
and psychological protection. The therapist will help the victim to evaluate the
price of the battle to be waged to get out of the quagmire of sexual abuse and
to realize that the desire to pull through will often be opposed by those who
should help most: the family or people in charge of institutions.
It is to
be noted that for fear of a scandal, when the abuser is part of an institution
whatever it may be, the management of the institution often decides to "cover
it up" and therefore to remain in denial of the abuse rather than publicly
recognize the existence of a sexual deviant in the midst of the institution.
There is a consensus of disapproval for the person who has the courage bring up
horrible things: the fact that she continues to be like the living dead isn't
important. The most important thing is for the person to remain quiet.
4.
The victim is ashamed Sartre
said that shame is "a hemorrhage of the soul". Sexual abuse marks the
person with a branding iron, dirties them, pushes them to hide themselves from
others. Shame is a mixture of fear of rejection and of anger toward the abuser,
which doesn't dare to express itself.
The appropriate feeling that the victim
should feel is anger. Feeling this liberating feeling will help the victim cope
with the shame. Time is sometimes necessary for the victim to be able to express
her indignation faced with the injustice she has experienced. This expression
of anger can express itself in a real way in front of the abuser or in a symbolic
way if this isn't possible for reasons of personal security. In any case, it is
for the victim to decide.
This shame is linked to the view that the victim
feels for herself; she sees herself as dirtied for life. It's the victim's view
that must change. The victim will begin to heal by changing her viewpoint.
5.
Contempt In
feeling ashamed, the abused person has two solutions: hating herself or hating
the abuser and anyone like him. In both cases, the result is the same: the victim
self destructs because hate - of herself or of another person - is destructive.
Self-contempt can be in regard to her body, her sexuality, her need for love,
her purity, her self-confidence.
This self-contempt has four functions: it
diminishes her shame, smothers her aspirations of intimacy and tenderness (self-contempt
blocks desire), gives her the illusion of controlling her suffering and prevents
her from trying to heal herself.
When the self-contempt is very intense,
it can lead to bulimia, self-mutilation and to suicide; in these three cases,
the person punishes her own body because it exists and it has desires.
6. The true enemy If
you were to ask a person who has suffered sexual abuse what is her enemy, she
will undoubtedly respond: "It is the guilt of the abuse." This seems
so obvious.
The victim has a choice: either she fights by cultivating her
hate for her abuser, brooding over her vengeance against him; or she flees by
trying to forget, by hardening herself to no longer suffer, by shutting herself
down, by becoming insensitive so as to no longer feel emotion or desire.
But
these two solutions are in vain because the enemy isn't the abuser. Of course,
he presents a problem, but the good news is that he isn't the main problem. The
real adversary is the person's determination to continue to suffer in her spiritual
and psychic death and to refuse to live again. Paradoxically, the enemy remains
in the victim herself!
This third step toward healing is without doubt the
most difficult to take. The person must understand that she has life and death
before her and it's her choice whether she remains dead or chooses to live again.
Once the counselor feels that the victim has made the decision to end this
death wish and enter into a "life wish", the counselor will undoubtedly
have the opportunity to speak with her about the three major kinds of damage that
the abuse has caused in her life which must be repaired.
[return] The
damage caused by sexual abuse This
damage constitutes a tumultuous torrent which sweeps through the soul and which
includes: a feeling of helplessness, that of having been betrayed, and the feeling
of ambivalence, as well as several other symptoms. 1.
The feeling of helplessness The
sexual abuse has been imposed on the victim. Whether it happened one time or one
hundred times, with or without violence, nothing changes the fact that she has
been deprived of her liberty of choice.
a. This feeling stems from
three reasons
She
couldn't change her dysfunctional family, if it concerns incest. Her relatives
didn't protect her as they should have; her mother or stepmother didn't see anything
or pretended to see nothing.
Whether the abuse was accompanied by violence or not, whether there was physical
pain or not, the victim couldn't escape, which creates weakness, solitude and
despair in her. In addition, the aggressor uses threats or her shame to keep her
silent and to continue in total impunity, which increases her helplessness.
She isn't able to end her
present suffering. Alone, the decision to kill herself would block her pain, but
she's unable to bring herself to do it, so she continues to live, and to suffer.
b.
This feeling of helplessness leads to serious damage The
abused person loses her self-esteem, doubts her talents and believes she is mediocre.
She abandons all hope.
She desensitizes her soul
in order to no longer feel the rage, suffering, desire or joy. She buries and
represses the horrible memories of sexual aggression in her subconscious.
As a result of giving up
feeling pain, she becomes like the living dead. She loses the feeling of existence,
seems a stranger to her own soul and her personal history.
She loses wisdom concerning human relationships, which explains the fact that
victims of sexual abuse often become involved again with a sexual deviant, which
reinforces their feeling of helplessness.
2.
The feeling of having been betrayed Many
people know Judas, the traitor but ignore the names of the eleven other apostles.
Why? Because most people feel that nothing is worse than being betrayed by someone
who is supposed to love you and respect you. The abused person feels betrayed
not only by the abuser in whom she trusted, but also by those who, either by negligence
or by complicity, did nothing to end the abuse.
The consequences of the betrayal
are: an extreme distrust and suspicion, especially regarding very nice people;
the loss of the hope of being close to and intimate with anyone and to be protected
in the future because those who had the power to do so didn't; the impression
that if she was betrayed, it was because she deserved it, due to a fault in her
body or her character.
3.
The feeling of ambivalence It
consists in feeling two contradictory emotions at the same time. Here, the ambivalence
gravitates around negative feelings (shame, suffering, helplessness) which were
sometimes simultaneously accompanied by pleasure, whether it be relational (a
compliment), sensual (a caress), or sexual (touching genitalia), in the first
phases of abuse.
The fact that the pleasure was sometimes associated with
suffering causes considerable damage: the person feels responsible for having
been abused, because she a "cooperated" and felt pleasure; the memory
of the aggression can return during conjugal relations; she is incapable of being
fulfilled in her sexuality which for her is too linked to the depravity of her
abuser; she controls and even forbids herself any pleasure and therefore any sexual
desire.
The counselor should explain to the person that she is not responsible
to have felt a certain pleasure, because it's normal that she appreciated the
"tender" words and the gestures of the abuser. It's nature that gives
this capacity for feeling pleasure to human beings.
What isn't normal is
the perversion of the one who premeditated an affectionate attitude to catch an
innocent prey in his trap. He is the sole person responsible.
4.
Some other symptoms You
might consider the possibility of sexual abuse if the client :
- Suffers
from repetitive depressions.
- Presents sexual problems: lack of desire, disgust,
frigidity, impotence, fear or distrust of men or women, fear of marriage, compulsive
masturbation. In a child, a problem with self-eroticism, as well as bedwetting,
might be caused by sexual abuse.
- Destroys oneself by the abusive use of
alcohol, drugs or food. Obesity, in particular, allows young girls or women who
were raped to subconsciously make themselves less attractive and therefore to
protect themselves against another aggression.
- Suffering from stomach aches,
repetitive gynecological infections.
- Has a very specific relationship style
with others: either he is too nice with everyone, or he is inflexible and arrogant,
or he is superficial and fickle.
[return] Help
the victim to live again The
victim must stop listening to the voices inside her head which maintain her feelings
of guilt and shame and start listening to the voice of truth, the voice that will
liberate her.
She should also abandon the dead-end solutions that well-intentioned
but untrained people ("little helped" help!) suggest: deny the abuse,
minimize it, forget, forgive the guilty person even if he hasn't seriously shown
remorse, turn the page, stop complaining, etc.
The path leading to getting
better has two steps: facing reality and deciding to live again.
1. Look at the blatant reality Little
by little, memories of the abuse will come back to the person; she will admit
the damage and start to feel the appropriate feelings.
a. Dig up memories
of the abuse The
victim often prefers to forget, because the memories disgust or terrify her so
much. Or perhaps she tells her story coldly, as if it happened to someone else.
But this denial is an obstacle to healing. The abuse should not be erased but
faced.
With great tact, encourage her to dig into her past, sometimes very
far back, because only a burst abscess can heal.
The return of buried memories
will be progressive during the psychotherapy sessions. The person's subconscious
actively collaborates through dreams or images that come back.
Sometimes,
certain events also bring back the forgotten trauma, for example: running into
the abuser, a pregnancy, menopause, another aggression, the fact that one of her
children is reaching the age she was when she was abused, the fact of finding
herself in the place where the aggressions took place, or the death of the abuser.
b. Admit the harm
This painful return into the past will allow the victim to admit the following
brutal truths:
I
was the victim of one or several sexual aggressions. It is a crime against my
body and against my soul.
Being a victim, I am in no way responsible for this crime, no matter what I felt.
As a result of this abuse,
I suffer from feelings of helplessness, betrayal and ambivalence.
My suffering is intense, but healing is possible, if I admit there is a wound.
This healing process will
take time.
I shouldn't
cover my past with a veil of secrecy or shame; but I don't have to discuss it
with just anyone.
c.
Feel appropriate feelings
Guilt (which is a very frequent racket
feeling here), shame, disgust, helplessness, hate, despair, should little by little
become replaced by more appropriate feelings such as anger against the abuser
and his accomplices and sadness over the damage suffered. This sadness should
not lead to death, to despair, but to life, that is to say to faith, hope and
renewed love.
The counselor will prefer the expression of these two feelings,
in a real or symbolic manner, but always in complete security, meaning in the
protected environment of therapy sessions.
2. Decide to live again Why
should the victim of sexual abuse decide to live again after everything she has
suffered and still suffers? Very simply because it is better to choose life over
death.
For the victim, choosing to live again means:
a.
Refusing to be dead The
victim finds it normal to live with a dead body and soul; paradoxically, this
allows the victim to survive, by no longer risking feeling joy or pain.
b. Refusing to distrust The
victim is wary of everyone. A raped woman in particular sees all "men"
as "bad". The victim needs to learn to transform her wariness toward
men into vigilance, something quite different.
c. No longer fear pleasure
and passion These
two elements bring her back to the drama she has suffered, so she flees. In doing
this, she deprives herself of these two gifts.
Having been the victim of desire
(deviant, but still desire) of someone, she "cuts off her nose to spite her
face", meaning that in rejecting the abuse she suffered, she also rejects
all desire, including her own.
She needs to realize that it's not because
someone had a deviant desire for her that she should abandon her own desire forever.
d. Dare to love again She
should progressively abandon her self-protecting attitude and rise from her withdrawal
to once again experience the joy of loving others and to create safe and warm
relationships.
She will leave her shell to find her warm heart once again,
capable of taking the risk of loving those she meets. She will abandon her defenses,
but that doesn't mean that she will not surround herself with protection. A protection
is not a defense.
She will then discover that even if one or several people
betrayed her, the vast majority of others are trustworthy.
[return] Unveiling
the abusers
1. Who are they?
The vast majority of abusers are men, young or old, from all social classes
and all milieus.
They are often in the victim's circle of relations: a school
friend, a neighbor, a scout leader or a youth group leader, a babysitter, a teacher,
a boss, a work colleague, a priest, etc.
They are also very often family members:
the father, the uncle, the grandfather, the great uncle, the step father (more
and more common due to the increase in remarriages and recomposed families), the
brother, the step or half-brother, the father-in-law, the cousin, etc. In this
case, it is called incest or intra-family sexual abuse.
It is much more rarely
someone unknown to the victim.
It is important to know that 80% of aggressors
were themselves victims of sexual abuse in the past, which in no way excuses them,
but can in part explain their behavior.
2. The unveiling A
victim has great difficulty denouncing her aggressor; she will more easily reveal
the abuse itself. Yet this denunciation has a huge therapeutic reach and it's
necessary to encourage the victim to break the silence. Once it's spoken about,
words become easier and are no longer forbidden, as the abuser wished.
But
this denunciation is often poorly accepted by society. As long as the sexually
abused person doesn't reveal her abuser, she is considered a victim. But the day
she decides to seek Justice, she is then considered guilty of having accused someone
and the crime committed against her will be denied.
This is an example of
the reason why the large majority of rape victims resign themselves to remain
victims for life and remain quiet, for fear of ultimately being accused of the
crime they denounce. But they should never hesitate to place the blame where it
belongs: with the rapist.
It should be recognized however that if filing a
complaint has a therapeutic scope, the legal process is long, painful and expensive.
The repeated interrogations, the lack of respect and of tact of certain people
, the shame of unveiling one's story before everyone, the impression of not being
believed leads to what is called "secondary victimization". Each time
the woman describes the rape, she feels violated once again.
Materiel and
psychological support from organisms specialized in helping victims of sexual
abuse is priceless in this type of procedure, even more so as the verdict, too
often mild, seems disappointing and unfair to the victim and revives her pain.
If you learn of a case of sexual abuse, the first thing to do is to get the victim
away from her abuser to avoid the abuse continuing.
In the specific case of
abuse on a minor, the second step is to inform the competent authorities (social
services and police).
The law compels you to reveal this situation and in
this case, you should break the professional secret. If you don't, you can be
legally considered as an accomplice. This denunciation aims to protect the victim
and other potential victims and to force the guilty person to cease their acts.
3. The reactions of the abusers
at their unveiling A recent European conference
on sexual violence established that 82% of abusers don't admit
their responsibility (53% completely deny the acts). Only 18% admitted their acts,
and then only because they had to after being confronted with their victims, and
not without having accused their victims of having "provoked" them.
This negation of the facts allows them to continue in their perversion therefore
being able to continue in their pleasure, the only thing that matters for them.
When they can no longer deny the facts, they admit them but minimize the importance
or deny the disastrous consequences for their victims, especially if there was
no physical violence. If they have remorse or regrets, it's never about their
crimes, but about having been caught and having to stop.
If a psychologist
shows indulgence toward a deviant because he wants to put a quick end to a situation
that is incomprehensible or disgusts him, he risks being manipulated by the abuser
who will pretend to be remorseful "enough" to peacefully continue his
hidden deviant activity. In so doing, the abuser makes the psychologist his accomplice,
which is grave.
Following is a possible reaction of someone guilty of sexual
abuse: he dirties and he befriends. He dirties the victims or other innocent people
by accusing them of the harm he commits; in doing so, he relieves his guilt. At
the same time, he befriends those who can become his allies and his defenders
(an incestuous father allies himself with his wife so she'll allow him to abuse
their daughter).
A deviant who is unmasked and who refuses to show remorse
can become panicked, depressed, an alcoholic or commit suicide; more often however
he hardens and continues his deviant behavior in an increased manner.
It is
extremely rare that a sexual delinquent shows true remorse, (at the most, he might
express some vague "regrets"), but you should always give him the opportunity
to apologize.
In conclusion, all therapists should be formally trained in this very special
field if they wish to work with patients having suffered from the drama called
sexual abuse. Jacques
and Claire Poujol
Marriage and family counselors
Web Site: www.relation-aide.com
(Extract
from the book by Jacques and Claire Poujol: Manuel de relation d'aide: l'accompagnement
spirituel et psychologique, Empreinte Temps Présent, 1998.) Bibliography Abus
sexuel. L'enfant mis à nu, Gijsechem (Van) Hubert, Méridien
Psychologie.
La personnalité de l'abuseur sexuel, Gijseghem
(Van) Hubert, Méridien Psychologie.
La violence impensable, inceste
et maltraitance, Gruyer F., Fadier-Nisse M., Dr Sabourin.
Le viol du
silence, Thomas Eva, Aubier.
Le viol, Brownmiller Susan, Stock.
Le viol, Lopez Gérard, Piffaut Gina, Que sais-je ? n° 2753,
PUF.
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famille maltraitante, Cirillo S., De Blasio P., ESF, 1992.
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domicile, la loi du silence, Bigourdan Paul, Delachaux Niestlé.
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