[humanser] The Trauma Myth: Understanding the True Dynamics of Sexual Abuse

[Merry Schoch]

This makes absolute sense to me.  I have to present an article in class 
tomorrow titled "Mediational significance of PTSD in the relationship of 
secxual trauma and eating disorders".  I must present the conclusion and 
then prepose questions to the class.

I will certainly use this post to help me create some questions to the class 
which I am sure will lead to an unexpected as well as interesting 
discussion. Thanks so much for posting!

Merry Schoch
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mary Ann Rojek" <brightsmile1953 at comcast.net>
To: <blind-counselors at topica.com>; "Human Services Mailing List" 
<humanser at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 12:27 PM
Subject: [humanser] The Trauma Myth: Understanding the True Dynamics of 
Sexual Abuse


> The Trauma Myth: Understanding the True Dynamics of Sexual Abuse
>
> By Susan Clancy, Psychotherapy Networker
> Posted on June 4, 2010, Printed on June 5, 2010
>>From the book The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the Sexual Abuse
> of
> Children and Its Aftermath by Susan A.  Clancy.  Copyright B)
> 2009 by Susan
> A.  Clancy.  Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of
> the Perseus
> Book Group.  Tell us what you think about this article by e-mail
> at
> letters at psychnetworker.org
> This e-mail address is being protected
> from
> spambots.  You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or at
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> comment section
> on every page of the online Magazine section.
>  As a graduate student at Harvard in the mid-1990's, I
> participated in
> research studies carried out by the psychology department that
> began in
> October 1996 and continued until August 2005 to interview adults
> who had
> experience sexual abuse as children and learn what effects the
> abuse had
> had on their lives.  Although I was sure I knew what I would
> discover-that
> the abuse would be remembered as a horrible experience that
> overwhelmed
> the people I interviewed with fear when it happened and had
> always been
> viewed as a traumatizing occurrence-what I heard in the hundreds
> of
> interviews I conducted was quite different.  In nearly all the
> cases, the
> adults I questioned had not experienced the abuse as traumatic
> when it
> occurred and only came to regard it as so years later.  And in
> many of the
> cases, they had never been questioned about their evolving sense
> of the
> abuse and the ongoing impact that it had on their lives, but only
> about
> what the traumatic experience had been like at the time.  These
> findings
> led me to question the progress professionals in the sexual abuse
> field
> have made when it comes to understanding and treating child
> sexual abuse.
>  Certainly we have advanced to the point that the right things
> are being
> said (sexual abuse is common and harmful; it is never the child's
> fault).
>  Funding in the trauma field has been secured, research
> conducted, studies
> and books published, treatment centers established, and public
> awareness
> raised through sex-education programs and campaigns in the media.
> But is
> any of it translating into actual progress for victims? Do they
> feel that
> they're being helped, that they're understood and their needs are
> being
> served effectively?
>  The trauma model's main purpose-one of the primary reasons why
> mental
> health professionals welcomed it with such enthusiasm in the
> 1980's-was to
> provide an explanation for how and why sexual abuse wreaks such
> psychological and social havoc in victims.  Armed with a better
> understanding of the impact of abuse, mental health professionals
> hoped to
> be better able to help victims cope with and recover from these
> damaging
> crimes.
>  The problem is that today, after more than twenty-five years,
> predictions
> based on the trauma model have not proved accurate.
> Characteristics of the
> sexual abuse experience related to trauma (like how frightening
> it was,
> whether penetration or force was involved, and how many times it
> happened)
> do not do a good job of forecasting the level of long-term
> psychological
> harm experienced.  There appears to be no direct, linear
> relationship
> between the severity of the abuse and the psychosocial
> difficulties
> victims experience in adulthood.  Worst of all, we have developed
> no
> clearly effective treatments for sexual abuse victims.  They
> continue to
> suffer from psychological and social problems in the aftermath of
> their
> abuse, and mental health professionals still have not reached a
> consensus
> as to exactly why or what precisely to do to help them recover.
>  This state of affairs is far from surprising.  How can trauma
> be the cause
> of harm if most victims say that the abuse was not traumatic when
> it
> happened? A growing number of scholars in the sexual abuse field
> are
> coming to agree that understanding how and why sexual abuse
> damages
> victims probably has little to do with the actual abuse and a lot
> to do
> with what happens in its aftermath.  For example, as David
> Finkelhor
> concluded in his recent book Childhood Victimization, continuing
> research
> efforts that seek to track the consequences of early events
> through
> developmental, cognitive, and behavioral pathways may prove more
> fruitful
> than continuing the restrictive focus on the severity and nature
> of
> event-specific trauma.  I believe that the victims themselves
> have always
> known this.
>  --------------
> Jen was a sixty-five-year-old, divorced, retired administrative
> assistant.
>  A tall, big-boned redhead with long purple fingernails, she was
> up front
> about lots of things.  She did not like the coffee I gave her, my
> office
> was too cold, and she did not like the color of my hair.  We were
> at the
> part of the interview when I asked her to rate how traumatic her
> abuse had
> been when it occurred.  She did not like the questions I asked.
>  "Nothing personal," she said, "but these questions are kind of
> dumb.  If
> you are trying to do what you say you're trying to do, and figure
> out why
> the abuse screwed me up so badly, why are you asking so many
> questions
> about what it was like when it happened? What you need to be
> focusing on
> was what it was like later on."
>  I asked what she meant.  "What I mean is that what it was like
> when it
> happened and what it is like now are two separate things
> entirely."
>  At that point in my career, I did not have a lot of experience
> interviewing sexual abuse victims.  I had, however, a lot of
> experience
> interviewing victims of other kinds of horrible experiences
> (motor vehicle
> accidents, combat, natural disasters, abductions), and I had
> asked these
> subjects to rate how traumatic the events were at the time.  No
> one in
> these studies had ever said this to me before.  And as far as I
> knew at the
> time, scholars were not talking how perceptions of the traumatic
> nature of
> an abuse experience change over time-how an event not initially
> perceived
> as horrible could become so.  They certainly talked about how
> symptoms of
> trauma (depression, anxiety) might not manifest themselves until
> long
> after the abuse, but they were not talking about how perceptions
> of the
> abuse itself can change.
>  I knew I had to consider Jen's words seriously.  From that
> point on, I
> asked my question in two parts: What was the experience like when
> it
> happened? And what is the experience like for you today, looking
> back on
> it.
>  By the end of the study, the data was clear.  Although sexual
> abuse was not
> a particularly awful experience for many victims when it
> happened, looking
> back on it, from their perspective as adults, it was
> awful-ratings of
> shock, horror, disgust, and even fear were all high.  Obviously,
> perceptions of abuse when it occurs and when victims look back on
> it years
> later are entirely different.  In addition, sexual abuse is very
> different
> from other kinds of terrible life experiences.  For example,
> getting into a
> car accident is traumatic both at the time it happens and later
> when it is
> recalled.  Sexual abuse, however, becomes traumatic later on.
> Why? What
> happens in the aftermath of sexual abuse?
>  According to victims, they did not experience the abuse as
> awful when it
> happened because most simply did not understand clearly the
> meaning or
> significance of the sexual behaviors they were engaging in.  That
> being
> said, at some point later on in life, they do.  Over time, the
> "cloak of
> innocence lifted," as one victim described it.  Victims
> reconceptualized
> the formerly "confusing and weird experiences" and understood
> them for
> what they were-sexual in nature and clearly wrong.  Only at this
> point-when
> the sexual abuse is fully apprehended-does it begin to damage
> victims.
>  Reconceptualization
> When Anne, a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two, was eight years
> old, her
> mother started working outside the home.  Between 3 P.M.  when
> Anne got home
> from school and 6 P.M.  when her mom came home from work, a
> neighbor and
> friend of her mother's named Frank would babysit.  Frank sexually
> abused
> Anne.  Sometimes, when Anne was sitting in his lap, he would "put
> his
> fingers inside my panties and feel me up . . .  and while this
> was going on
> he would thrust himself up against my butt and he would be
> breathing
> heavy."
>  When it was happening, Anne said she did not like what he was
> doing but
> was "definitely not traumatized." And she was not different from
> most of
> the victims who spoke to me.  "I knew it was something I
> shouldn't talk
> about with my mother, but not really exactly totally sure why."
> After
> about eight months of intermittent abuse, Frank left town, and
> Anne said
> she "just didn't think much about it again." But then something
> changed.
>  Anne reconceptualized her abuse-she figured out the meaning of
> these
> previously ambiguous experiences.  "I remember this like it was
> yesterday.. . .  I was in eighth grade and my friend Jennie was
> over and she had seen
> her brother and his girlfriend making out and she was reenacting
> them
> rolling around on the ground and moaning and it was then [that] I
> remembered what happened; it reminded me of what happened. . . .
> I
> realized, totally all of a sudden, that what had happened to me
> was
> sexual-that I had basically been having sexual experiences with
> my
> babysitter when I was kid." It took Anne six years to cognitively
> reconceptualize what happened to her and understand that it was
> wrong.
>  Betrayal
> When they discover that they have been abused, victims most
> frequently
> report feelings of betrayal.  As Cheryl, a forty-three-year-old
> high school
> teacher on maternity leave with triplets, put it, "I realized
> that I
> trusted him, what he was doing, and I should not have.  He knew
> he was
> doing something wrong, and he knew I didn't know. . . .  It was
> all an
> elaborate game of sexual betrayal." As Neil, an AIDS activist
> working for
> a hospital in Boston, said, "I realized that it wasn't just what
> he did to
> me physically.  At that moment [of discovery] I lost my father.
> He was no
> longer someone who loved and took care of me.  I was just being
> used by him
> for his personal gratification."
>  For the victims who spoke to me, the degree of the betrayal was
> a function
> of two main variables.  First, it depended on how close the
> victim felt to
> the perpetrator, on how much he or she trusted, cared about, or
> loved him.
>  The second variable was the degree to which the victim believed
> he or she
> had been emotionally manipulated by the perpetrator or "taken in"
> by the
> situation.  In those cases in which the abuse was traumatic when
> it
> happened (it involved force, violence, or pain), victims
> subsequently felt
> less betrayal.  Since in these cases the children clearly
> understood the
> wrongness of the situation, any sense of betrayal arose
> immediately.  And,
> because the children understood they were being victimized, the
> abuse was
> unlikely to happen again (or if it did, the child remained well
> aware of
> his or her victimization).  Thus, victims did not have to undergo
> long
> periods in which they unknowingly fell prey to, as one subject
> told me,
> the perpetrator's "elaborate games of sexual betrayal." As Tom, a
> neurosurgeon, put it, "For two years, while it was happening I
> felt good
> about him.  I believed him, all his lies and let him do whatever
> he wanted.
>  It makes me sick to think about how much I trusted him, how
> much, for how
> long he took advantage of that." In other words, the degree of
> betrayal
> victims felt in the aftermath was an inverse function of how
> traumatic the
> abuse was when it happened: the less traumatic it was, the more
> betrayal
> victims reported.
>  As a consequence, many told me, this betrayal forced them to
> rethink the
> past.  For many victims, a former sense of security is shattered;
> many
> report feeling a new sense of interpersonal insecurity and
> vulnerability.
>  As Maria told me, "The day I understood what happened to me, I
> completely
> lost my own sense of security.  The childhood I imagined I
> hadbthe safety
> that enveloped me-was shattered.  The people who were supposed to
> be
> looking out for my well-being [and] taking care of me were not."
>  Betrayal affects not only victims' feelings of security and
> trust in
> others but also their self-worth.  They feel that since they must
> not have
> been loved, perhaps they were not worth loving.  As Charles, a
> history
> professor, explained to me, "You learn that who you are and what
> you might
> want or need just does not matter."
>  Considering the degree and extent of the betrayal victims felt,
> I expected
> anger at the perpetrator to be a common reaction.  Yet only 5
> percent
> spontaneously reported feeling angry at their abuser.  Why would
> the victim
> of a crime punishable in almost any court system in the world not
> be angry
> at the perpetrator? According to victims, it is because they
> turned the
> anger inward.  Most, to a shocking extent, blamed themselves.
>  Self-Blame
> According to philosophers, psychiatrists, and intellectuals from
> Aristotle
> to William James, from Sigmund Freud to Donald Spence, when bad
> things
> happen to people-like discovering they were sexually abused by an
> adult
> they trusted-it is human nature to want to engage in a search for
> meaning,
> to understand why the event occurred and what its implications
> for one's
> life are.
>  As victims struggle to make sense of their experiences, they
> engage in an
> attribution process: they scan through all the possible
> explanations they
> can generate to come up with the one that they believe fits best.
>  Traditionally defined, attributions are individual causal
> explanations for
> why events occur.
>  If a victim asks, why did someone I trusted abuse me? there
> are, of
> course, endless possible answers.  For example, he was screwed up
> or drunk,
> or I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The famous
> attributional
> theorist, Martin Seligman, would refer to this category of
> answers as
> "external explanations for negative events." It assigns
> responsibility for
> the event to someone or something else.  But almost all the
> victims I've
> spoken with, to some degree, endorse an "internal" explanation.
> They see
> the abuse as their fault-caused by their own characteristics or
> behavior.
>  I asked victims who was to blame for the abuse-them, the
> perpetrator, or
> both.  Almost 80 percent felt both were at fault.  While almost
> all could
> acknowledge that the perpetrator was responsible, they also
> thought they
> had done something wrong too.
>  Again, I have found that the degree of guilt victims feel in
> the aftermath
> of sexual abuse is strongly related to the degree of trauma
> experienced
> during the abuse when it happened.  Specifically, the less
> traumatic
> (forceful, frightening, threatening) the abuse was while it
> occurred, the
> more guilt and self-blame the victims report later on.  Those
> victims whose
> abuse involved force or violence usually report the least guilt.
> In such
> cases, the victims know it was not their fault.  One of the
> victims I spoke
> with summarized this quite well: "I was bleeding.  I screamed
> when it was
> happening.  He ran away.  I got rushed to the hospital.  It was
> pretty cle
> to me that he had done something wrong, that it was definitely
> not my
> fault." Victims who report no trauma at all during the abuse (for
> example,
> those who loved the perpetrator, enjoyed the attention, or
> occasionally
> welcomed the contact) feel extremely guilty.
>  Today, most adult victims' knowledge about sexual abuse, about
> what it is
> like when it happens and how children react at the time, is a
> function of
> what they hear, read, and see in the media-the culturally
> available,
> standard scripts about this crime.  Because of the trauma myth,
> according
> to these scripts, sexual abuse usually involves fear, force, and
> threat.
>  The experience is portrayed as terrible for the victims.  They
> are
> frightened when it happens.  They try to resist the abuse.
> Whatever happens
> clearly happens against their will.  Books, films, and websites
> repeatedly
> assure victims that they had no control, that they were utterly
> helpless.
>  Words like "rape," "assault," and "violation" are commonly used
> to
> conceptualize the experience.
>  No professionals explicitly discuss with victims or highlight
> the real
> dynamics of sexual abuse-that victims rarely resist it, often
> care about
> the perpetrators, and often receive "benefits" for participation,
> like
> praise, attention, and gifts.  In fact, this kind of information
> may
> actually be suppressed.  It appears to be an article of faith
> among
> professionals that you should not talk about aspects of sexual
> abuse that
> run counter to the trauma model at all.  A wildly popular book
> written for
> professionals by Judith Herman warns professionals not to talk
> about the
> issue of consent as doing so will likely make the victims "feel
> revictimaized again."
>  Because of the trauma myth, I am aware of no public information
> campaigns
> that say, "Kids don't know enough to say no." There are no books
> telling
> victims, "You let it happen, and it's okay.  It's normal.  You
> were too good
> to know bad." I know of no newspaper stories in which the victim
> comes
> forth after years to press charges and explicitly says, "I would
> have done
> it earlier, but I just didn't understand I was abused until now."
> Today,
> as a function of the mental health field's relentless emphasis on
> trauma,
> force, and violence and the subsequent embargo on any real-world,
> practical information about the reality of sexual abuse, most
> victims'
> experiences slip under the radar-their stories are ignored,
> dismissed,
> overlooked, or denied by the very people who purport to be trying
> to help
> them.
>  What is the consequence? For victims, it is significant.  They
> naturally
> compare what happened to them with the depictions of abuse in
> cultural
> scripts.  As James, a nurse, told me, "What happened to me was
> different
> from other kids.  I . . .  well . . .  it's hard to say out loud,
> but
> basically I let it happen." There is something wrong with me.  As
> Denise, a
> bathing-suit model, noted, "I wasn't afraid.  Sometimes I liked
> it.
>  Obviously something's screwed up with me." I am alone.  Claudia
> explained,
> "My abuse did not involve such force and violence.  I basically
> let it
> happen . . .  so it wasn't classical abuse."
>  Given the degree of betrayal, guilt, and isolation victims
> feel, it is not
> surprising that they also commonly report shame.
>  Shame
> Shame is an awful emotion, one in which the self is viewed as
> incompetent
> and as an object of ridicule, contempt, and disgust.  Individuals
> feeling
> shame often view themselves as damaged and unworthy.
> Unfortunately, most
> victims use the word "shame" to describe how their abuse makes
> them feel
> as adults.  As one victim summed it up, "I think the heart of the
> damage is
> shame.  It eats away at me.  It has eroded my sense of
> self-esteem and my
> confidence, my ability to love and feel loved.  The abuse stopped
> when I
> was twelve; the shame remained my whole life."
>  Further support for the perspective that what damages most
> victims has
> little to do with any trauma they experience during the abuse and
> a lot to
> do with the shame, guilt, and isolation they feel later on in
> life comes
> from the fact that in the handful of studies that have
> specifically tested
> it, therapeutic techniques involving cognitive
> retraining-identifying
> victims' irrational beliefs (for example, that the abuse was
> their fault)
> and then helping them to modify these beliefs (for example, by
> providing
> convincing information about why it was not their fault)-have
> shown solid
> promise in improving the lives of victims in the aftermath of
> sexual
> abuse.
>  Today, victims need to hear the truth.  This requires us all to
> highlight
> publicly the true dynamics of sexual abuse-to expose the painful
> reality
> that most victims care for and trust the perpetrator (before, and
> sometimes during and after, they are abused), that they do not
> really
> understand the nature of what is being asked of them, that they
> feel they
>>every receiving love and attention, that it does not hurt and
> sometimes
> feels good, and that, for all these reasons, participation is
> common.
>  Once exposed to the truth about how victims feel and behave
> during sexual
> abuse, victims need to hear, loudly and clearly, why they were
> not at
> fault.  We cannot accomplish this with platitudes or blanket
> statements
> like "You were not to blame" or "It was done against your will."
> They
> consented not because they were forced to but because they did
> not
> understand enough not to.  And victims need to know that this is
> normal.
>  Although they made an error of judgment-ideally they should
> have said no;
> they should have resistedbwe must reassure victims that given
> their age
> and level of cognitive and physical development, this error of
> judgment
> was understandable.
>  In short, in order to help victims feel less stigmatized in the
> aftermath
> of sexual abuse, we must all communicate that they were helpless
> victims-not, as the trauma model portrays them, literally
> helpless but
> metaphorically helpless, victims of their own level of
> development.
>  This information needs to be highlighted in the form of
> prevention
> campaigns, books, websites, and other culturally accessible
> outlets.  Until
> that happens, victims will continue to feel alone, guilty, and
> ashamed.
>  Professionals may fear that raising attention to children's
> participation
> in abuse will elicit in others a tendency to condemn victims, but
> I think
> we better get past this.  Victims are already condemning
> themselves.  Here
> is the tragic paradox.  If the victim's cognitive interpretation
> of the
> event guides the process of psychological adaptation after sexual
> abuse,
> then the trauma theory is not only wrong but actually backwards.
> The less
> traumatic sexual abuse was when it happened, the more betrayal,
> guilt,
> isolation, and shame victims will feel and the more psychological
> distress
> and dysfunction they may experience in the aftermath.  And
> because it is
> backwards, the trauma model is not just failing to help victims;
> it is
> actually causing some of the harm it was supposed explain by
> simultaneously exacerbating the victim's damaging beliefs ("It
> was my
> fault," "I am alone," "There is something wrong with me") and
> suppressing
> the information that would neutralize them.
>  Susan Clancy is the author of The Trauma Myth: The Truth About
> the Sexual
> Abuse of Children and Its Aftermath
>  B) 2010 Psychotherapy Networker All rights reserved.
>


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