Depression • Alcoholism • Addictions • Marital Relations • Anger • Stress and Anxiety • Coping with Crisis • Children/Family Issues

Sexual Abuse

The interior world of a sexual abuse survivor is often coated in the grayish shadows of the netherworld. The individual usually dons a heavy yoke of shame that is pervasive throughout the body. Grief is often present in one’s loss of self and in the feelings of being isolated from self, God and others. The sexual abuse survivor may struggle for long periods of time to regain balance and a loving acceptance of one’s self. This calls for courage and endurance. The lens through which one views the world can be clouded by distrust, fear and confusion. One may not know why life has changed so radically. The survivor may enter relationships with caution. One may vacillate between exercising rigid defense patterns and boundary-less limitations with other persons.

Responses to sexual abuse can disrupt sexual development. Sex is good and all persons need support to discover themselves as sexual persons. While sex abuse may not necessarily disrupt sexual development-some children and adults are very resilient, sexual abuse carries the potential for creating brokenness in the self and in interpersonal relationships.

The reparative work, set by the survivor’s own pacing, needs to be nurturing, as well as educational, in order to kindle the flames of self-care and self-acceptance. The dynamics between the counselor and the counselee work as rapport is built on a foundation of trust and wisdom. The survivor’s personal responses are as significant as the memories. The healing journey may move through many stages in order for one to integrate the terrible experiences of sexual abuse. A treatment process may include the use of additional resources, including medical attention, journaling, meditation and reading.

The survivor will often wrestle with fundamental faith concerns demonstrated in the following questions: How can a loving God let this happen? What does it mean to be a beloved child of God? What did I do? How can I trust? Where was God when I called out? A counselor will not only have ears to hear, but also help to reweave the spiritual and emotional stories of the individual into a fabric of wholeness.

There is difficulty in saying enough about the theological implications of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse frequently occurs in relationships where one in authority has power over one who does not. While a perpetrator may invoke God-given rights to his or her “abusive behaviors”-and the survivor may not want to call these experiences “abusive,” the perpetrator has acted outside God’s reign and will. Such abuses of power by a perpetrator are entrées to encounters with evil, and, as such, can expose the survivor to confusion and misinterpretation, theologically as well as psychologically. Theologically, there may be need to restore a relationship with God, to articulate one’s faith or lack of it, and to interpret one’s experience in the light of revelation.

To contact the nearest Pastoral Counseling Center in your area click here.