By Roni Weisberg-Ross, L.M.F.T., Abuse Topic Expert Contributor

“A Social Problem Does Not Exist For A Society Until It Is Recognized By That Society To Exist” – H. Blumer

The following is the first of a three-part series of articles:

It was in a high school literature class that I was first introduced to the Oedipus Complex, defined as “a boy’s unresolved desire for sexual gratification through the parent of the opposite sex, especially the desire of a son for his mother”. It was in a college film class that I was shown a famous French film entitled “Murmur of the Heart” which took the Oedipal theme and played it out in a contemporary middle class setting. In this film, the sensitive youngest son of a beautiful, tempestuous Italian woman is ushered into manhood by her as he recovers from a heart murmur at a countryside sanitarium. The film would have you believe that although mother and son both realized that they had crossed a forbidden line, neither was scarred by the experience, and that in fact the son was now able to go on and become a man. At the time, I never questioned the implications of this theme. Read the rest of this entry

GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Judith Barr, MA, LMHC

Click here to contact Judith and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“Every form of power can be used well or misused.
The law has been used to manipulate as well as to serve justice.
Parenthood has been used as a means of captivity, and it has been used to nourish a soul, helping it grow into fullness.
Sexuality has been used as a weapon to rape and dominate, as a substitute for unmet childhood bonding and physical touch, and as an exquisite sacred expression of love and union.”*

The recent events related to film director Roman Polanski bring up a lot of questions for us to examine as individuals and as a world culture. Read the rest of this entry

By John Lee, LMHC, Post Traumatic Stress / Trauma Topic Expert Contributor

Click here to contact John and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

**GoodTherapy.org Disclaimer: This article contains sensitive material that may trigger strong reactions for some readers, especially those with a history of trauma.**

A personal introduction from a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and survivor of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

In the past, I would have been unable to share this story of my loss of innocence. Only recently, I have broken through the silence of shame and feel very comfortable in sharing. My motive is to help others who are also living in shame and are having devastating and paralyzing symptoms of PTSD! Read the rest of this entry

By Roni Weisberg-Ross, L.M.F.T., Abuse Topic Expert Contributor

When we think of children who have been sexually abused, we think of fear, anger and violence. Most sexual abuse survivors talk of the terror and disassociation surrounding the abuse. Many still feel that way as adults and don’t enjoy sex now, even in a loving relationship. But there are those who have a more complicated story to tell. These survivors may have hated their abusers but experience an unspeakable shame over the fact that their bodies responded sexually to the abuse. They cannot live with the knowledge that they were sexually stimulated even as they were being raped. Now they are not only healing from the abuse but from the additional belief that they were partially responsible for the abuse – and that they may even have deserved it.

While adult survivors can intellectually understand that as children they were victims of their abuse, they don’t always feel that way. And they certainly can’t accept that fact if they responded sexually. Many of them can’t imagine how a child could respond sexually. So they believe that not only are they dirty, but that they are freaks as well. Yet children do have sexual feelings. Toddlers can sexually arouse themselves. And as they get older, many of them experiment and discover that their bodies respond. The myth that hormonal changes occurring at adolescence are the beginning of sexual feelings is just that, a myth. Read the rest of this entry

By Joyce A. Thompson, MS, LMFT, Abuse Topic Expert Contributor

Click here to contact Joyce and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Many survivors have heard the terribly painful comments from others who just did not ‘get it’, telling them that their abuse was in the past and to basically ‘get over it’. But sadly, childhood abuse causes many difficulties for those survivors, and it’s not simply a matter of ‘forgiving and forgetting’. Not everyone experiences the same after-effects of childhood abuse, but there are many commonalities among survivors in what they suffer. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Jolyn Wells-Moran, PhD, MSW

A research report released in late October by the VA (Veteran’s Administration) states that 15% of military personnel who received some medical service from the VA suffered sexual trauma while in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Reuters. The majority of those who screened positively for sexual trauma were women, one in seven who sought some form of VA service after leaving the military. The VA documented that one percent of men discharged from the military reported sexual trauma. All VA medical service users are screened for sexual trauma, defined as psychological disturbance related to an unwanted sexual advance, including sexual assault and severe sexual harassment.

The study found that this group were one and one-half times more likely to require mental health treatment. Rachel Kimerling of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California, where the study was conducted, noted that not only can sexual trauma result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but also in substance abuse, depression and anxiety. Read the rest of this entry

By Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

Click here to contact Sarah and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

I knew, several months ago, that I would write about April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Nevertheless, after the short amount of time that it took to write it, the original article sits, alone in my office trashcan, tossed aside. The cold hard facts about sexual assault, the statistics, they all had their place. They cried out like an overwhelmingly loud and obnoxious alarm clock, desperately trying to wake you as you slumber peacefully. But you see, statistics always do. Numbers always do. Facts always do. We hear them every day and yet, they are not heard. Ironically, just like the voice of many victims of sexual assault, their cries go unanswered. So, I rewrote it.

Sure, you may know that every 35 seconds, a child is reported to be abused or neglected (NCVC, 2008). You may even know that 1 of out 6 women and 1 out of 33 men have experienced a completed or attempted rape (RAINN, 2008). But the difference is that you don’t know statistics. You just know people. You would truly know, and you could feel that statistic, if it was your child, your friend, your sister, your brother, your father, your mother, or you who were assaulted.

I struggled with this writing because sexual assault and abuse is tough to write about. Like the analogy a friend recently told me, it’s like being the town crier. You have a difficult announcement to make, to call out, but the message is ugly, painful, and shocking. Let’s face it. Who really wants to hear that their family and friends are more likely to abuse their child than strangers? Who really wants to acknowledge that you are more likely to be raped by someone you already know? But, someone does want you to hear it, and those are the people who already know. Read the rest of this entry

~Written by Anonymous

In another culture they would perhaps be called visions.

In our culture, we call this “Self-Led Healing.”

I call it taking the hand of my Higher Power, going to a place within myself that I call my Story-Telling Place, and working with my Higher Power to create the story-adventures that cleanse and heal the pockets of pain in that deep inner country inside myself.

Before we begin I must tell you several things about myself. When I was four or five years old I was sexually abused by a man who told me that he would kill me in my sleep if I ever told anyone what had happened. He also threatened to kill my family if I ever told. I believed him; I never told.

I have been blessed with many experiences of healing and recovery in my life. I am also very blessed to have a living, vibrant relationship with a wonderful Higher Power (the one the grownups call God). He both anchors me and gives me wings. Whenever I go to my Story-Telling Place, I always smile because He is there waiting for me and loving me.

And now, the story. . .

Once upon a time, there was a grownup woman, with a sealed-off cave inside her. We will call her Laura. Laura did not know about the sealed-off cave. Laura did know several things. She knew that she had a wonderful Higher Power, a Shining One, who had told her in many different ways that it was time for her to heal and grow, and that he would walk with her through the healing. Laura also knew a trusted Wise Woman, a therapist who sat beside Laura and gave her companionship during the healing times. And Laura knew a few strange facts about herself:

• That she had an extremely difficult time standing up for herself with those she loved

• That she was so afraid of what she was about to uncover that a large part of her wanted to quit the healing process before getting there.

• That what she was about to uncover was very, very important

When they went to the Story-Telling Place Laura felt a strange reluctance. Four times Laura held her Shining One’s hand and asked if He really wanted her to go through this door. Four times he said yes. But Laura was stopped, over and over again, when she tried to walk towards the sealed-off cave and the woman she knew was trapped inside the cave.The first time she was stopped by a black swamp. Her Higher Power built a bridge of gold across the swamp. After she crossed the swamp, she was stopped by a storm. Lightning tore apart the sky; thunder fell like breakers around her, tornadoes of black wind grabbed at her and shook her equilibrium. But Laura stood her ground until she noticed a most interesting sight: A little man, about two inches tall, was moving levers and wheels to create the terrible storm. The storm died away, allowing her to see, in front of her, a black stone box, four feet high, four feet deep, and ten feet long.

“You must not go in!” the man said. “You will die!”

Laura took a deep breath and asked her Higher Power again, “Are you sure you want me to do this?”

“Yes,” he said again, kindly but firmly.

So she held her Higher Power’s hand and said firmly to the little man. “I will listen to you. But you must not overwhelm me.”

The man said, “You will die!”

“Tell the truth,” Laura’s Higher Power said.

The man sighed. He looked tired. “I am afraid,” he said simply. “I know you want to go inside the box. I have guarded this box for so long. Guarding the box is all I know how to do. I am afraid that after you open the box I won’t have any role any more, and you will abandon me.”

Laura looked tenderly at the man. “Here in my kingdom,” she said clearly, “all parts of me have a home. All parts of me are loved and respected and no one ever has to leave. Here, there are fun things to do, a wonderful school to go to, many other parts to be friends with, and new adventures to create. I have never abandoned any of my parts and I never will. You are safe here. You will be cherished here.”

The man sighed again, but before he could speak, a black cloud sprang up, covering the black box.
The cloud said, “This is not right. You should not go there.”

Laura’s Higher Power said, simply, “Tell the truth.”

The cloud sighed. Wearily, it said, “You are right. I am afraid. There is rage inside, so much rage that I am afraid of it. I am afraid that if I let the rage out it will overwhelm me and I will do violence to someone. I am afraid of what I will do if we open the box.”

Laura and her Higher Power talked for a long time to the cloud. They listened to it, and loved it. Then, Laura saw her Shining One lift his hand. She gave a cry of joy as the black cloud immediately became a golden bird. The golden bird was given a golden whistle on a chain to drape around her neck. With the whistle, the golden bird could call for help whenever she felt afraid of the rage.
The golden bird felt better but still did not feel safe. She asked for something more to help her feel protected from her rage. She received an escort of three angels, who could fly faster than the golden bird and were stronger than the golden bird could ever be. She knew that if the rage ever overpowered her, the three angels would fly beside her and in front of her and act as buffers to keep her from harming anyone. “Now that I feel safe you can investigate the box,” she told Laura. And the golden bird and the angels perched up on a high rock, so they could look down and cheer Laura on.

Laura and her Higher Power went back to talk with the little man. Laura asked him what job he would like to do once he stopped guarding the box.

After some thought, the little man finally cried, in triumph, “Curiosity! There are so many things I want to learn, and to do. I could be Laura’s curiosity. I could keep asking questions and learning new things and finding new topics to explore. I would LOVE to do that.”

“That’s a very good role,” the Wise Woman commented, with a smile.

And so, reassured, the little man stepped aside.

Laura gave the little man the role of being Curiosity to help all the parts in her kingdom, and thanked the little man for all he had done for her, and thanked the bird for giving her best and doing everything she did out of love for Laura.

Then Laura stood in front of the black box, and sighed. “Are you sure you want me to do this?” she asked her Higher Power.

“Tell yourself the truth,” he told her, lovingly, but with authority. “You are stalling.. You know what you have to do.”

So Laura asked the bird and the little man to help her.

Together they lifted the black stone cover off the huge black stone box.

Inside, Laura saw the most horrible sight! It was a dead woman! Slimy—death—stench—it was Laura’s face. But it wasn’t Laura’s face—it was death itself.

“How awful!!” Laura exclaimed. “It’s death in this casket!”

Terrified, Laura watched as the dead woman in the casket sat up and pulled the rags off her face. Then both the woman and the casket turned into smoke and completely disappeared.

Suddenly, Laura was free, free to walk through the space where the box had been holding her back. Astonished, she walked on in complete freedom.

“I’m fine!” she said with wonder. “Nothing happened, after all.”

Together, Laura and her Higher Power walked up a path. They came to the edge of the sea and viewed, a short distance over the water, an island on which was a dark cave. Inside the cave was a woman. She looked like a skeleton, with patches of black all over her skin and the saddest eyes that Laura had ever seen.

Surprised at her knowledge, Laura said softly, “Her name is Emma, and she’s been shut up in this cave for 45 years.” Laura and her Higher Power stood and looked at the woman.

“Does Emma have something to say?” the Wise Woman asked.

“She cannot talk,” Laura said. “She doesn’t know how to talk.”

And as swift as kindness and as completely as love, Laura’s Higher Power reached out one hand to transform Emma and her surroundings. “Not one second longer in this prison!” the Higher Power said. He waved his hand and instantly a large glistening flying white horse flew down from the sky and landed on the island at the entrance of the cave. The horse kneeled to permit Emma to climb atop his back. As she hugged her thin body around the horse’s neck the horse took to the sky, leaving the island and the horrible cave behind.

With another wave of his hand, Laura’s Higher Power submerged the cave and the island under clean blue water. The white horse flew down and landed Emma beside Laura and her Higher Power. Liberated from her prison, Emma herself was healed! She had shining brown skin. The black patches were gone from her face. Then the Higher Power touched Emma, gently, on the lips.
“She can talk now,” Laura reported to the Wise Woman. “She’s learning how to talk again, after all these years.”

“What does she have to tell us?” the Wise Woman asked.

And now that Emma could speak, fury, rage, and hostility all poured out. She was angry at Laura for abandoning her, angry at the man who sexually abused young Laura, angry at the people who walked all over Laura, and angry at Laura for not standing up for herself all these years. And Emma was afraid.

Laura told the wise woman, “Emma’s still afraid of being forgotten. She’s afraid that I’ll forget about her again. She’s afraid of being sealed away again, hidden behind the fear of death, as she was. That was such a complete prison—no one dared come near!”

“Tell her that that will never happen. Tell her that you’ll never forget her again,” the Wise Woman said.

“I know,” Laura said.

And now that she could see Emma, and talk to her, the right words came very easily.
“I don’t blame you for being mad!” Laura told Emma. “I’d be mad also! And I am so very, very sorry that I did this. I understand how angry you are! Your anger is perfectly justified!”
“ I gave away my power,” Laura said to herself and to Emma, “I gave away the right to defend myself . . . because that man said that he would kill me if I said anything. So I hid away the very possibility of saying anything! I hid it behind the fear of death. I thought I would die if I looked at this part of myself again—that’s what the casket was!”

Laura talked with Emma for a long time. Then she and her Higher Power thanked Emma. The Higher Power gave Emma many presents.

They turned Emma’s anger, which was very real, and very important, into a pillar of fire many hundreds of feet high.

“It can burn beside the story-telling platform,” Laura said. “It will be like a streetlamp. And when we need its power to protect me, it will be here.”

Emma asked to be a messenger between the anger and Laura, so the Higher Power gave her a set of wings. But they were paper wings.

“You must separate yourself from the anger,” he warned, “or the wings will catch fire.”

And he told Emma that she had to have a hobby.

“The cave is gone,” he warned her. “But if you do not separate yourself from the anger, it will feel as if you are back in the cave again.”

So Emma chose, as her hobby, digging precious gems and making jewelry. Again the Higher Power gave her a warning. “The jewels will melt if you do not distance yourself from the anger,” he said, gently but firmly. “You must learn to live as a free woman. You must learn to have other thoughts besides anger in your mind. It will take time, but you will learn to live free.”

It has been almost a week now since this story happened, and Laura is thrilled to understand, for the first time in her life, why something inside her had felt like death whenever she argued with a loved one and why she had always been unable to stand up for herself with those she loved most. Those old shackles have drifted to nothingness as completely as that black casket of death drifted into smoke.

She is so happy to be free.

In her mind, as she writes these words, Laura goes to the story-telling place and puts her arm around Emma. Together they stand and look at the pillar of flame.

“Thanks, Emma,” she says, simply. They smile at each other.

And Laura knows, without turning around, that her Higher Power is beside her. She feels his presence as warmly as a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you so much.”

THE END

©Copyright 2008 Anonymous. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. If you’d like to comment on Anonymous’s story, we have permission to accept comments here. All comments are moderated.

~Written by Karen M. Reed

When I began training in Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) several years ago, my whole life became a healing story. It is difficult to even know how to begin or focus in the attempt to tell it. I was drawn to the model after reading Dick’s textbook in graduate school. It stirred my heart. It just felt right to me. And now I know why!

Not long after beginning the training, I started to have difficulties being there without exiles crawling out of the woodwork. I knew I was a woman with a history of what I called “sexual problems,” but I did not know I was a person with a severe trauma history. I should applaud the strength and tenacity of my performing managers, who pulled it off so well they even had me fooled.

Most people who knew me as I was growing up considered me bright, popular, successful, and very likely to succeed. I think we all wondered over the years why that didn’t seem to be happening. It wasn’t that my life was a failure – I just never seemed to find myself or settle anywhere professionally. I always felt like I was running away inside. Truth be told, I was.

I knew that I had been through some sexual abuse as a foster child, and that I seemed to be a magnet for inappropriate treatment by men as I was growing up. As an adolescent and young adult I went through several long-term, destructive, illicit relationships. I blamed and hated myself for them. I remember wondering how and why I seemed to keep ending up in those situations, especially since I was a Christian and did not believe that was the way God wanted me to be living. From the time I had a personal encounter with Jesus at age 13, I loved Him and wanted to live in way that honored the love I found in that relationship.

But in spite of sincere and repeated repentance, and many attempts to find help, the destructive relationship patterns continued. As my despair about myself deepened, I began to develop secret firefighter activities to numb away from what I could not change. Drinking, binge eating, and abusive pornography were my favorites—not only did they numb me, they intensified and reinforced the self-hatred I was accumulating over the years.

Periodically I would seem to be getting my life under control—no destructive relationship for a year or so—hope in sight. But inevitably the cycle would resume, and I would once again be battling my inner demons. Few people knew what was going on inside. I managed to get a teaching degree, a ministerial degree, and more recently, a master’s degree. But I struggled to land anywhere professionally because I was internally tormented over my battle with destructive relationships and the drastic dichotomy I saw between my public and private lives. I did not like myself. I did not believe in myself. I did not know who I was.

I spent several seasons of my life not wanting to be alive at all. I made a few half-hearted attempts at suicide. And yet somehow, deep within, I knew that how I lived in secret was not really who I was. I never accepted it as truly me—I just couldn’t find the help I needed to create the congruence in my life for which I longed.

By the time I began studying IFS in CT in 2001, I had not been doing anything “wrong” in my life for many years. But neither had I healed my history, which was evidenced in my lack of professional confidence, and my faithful, unquestioning commitment to a difficult and painful marriage. I had constructed a story for my life that worked—until the exiles began showing up!

My first encounter with one of my exiles came at an advanced training weekend. The topic was sexuality—no surprise it would trigger some junk for me! I was so blended with the exile who came up that Dick did a piece of work with me. We ended up discovering an infant, who was buried under signs that read, “You can fuck me,” “You can hurt me,” “You can treat me like a thing.” I was shocked, amazed, and awed. I began to realize that I had a lot of work to do, and I began to do it, in earnest.

For nearly five years, as I continued to study and work clinically in the model, I was also involved in a deep and intense healing of my life from physical and sexual abuse, much of which was unconscious to me. I have been on an amazing journey of healing with memories going as far back as early infancy, and even in the womb. Sometimes it was difficult to believe the memories that parts began to show me could possibly have come from my life. But I knew I was not manufacturing the mind, body, and spirit torment, nor was I imagining the powerfully spiritual healing experiences I began to have.

Once I had a taste of what was possible for me through this work, it was all I wanted. Years of hopelessness, despair, and desperation began to melt away as my life started to heal. So often I thought I was done—I thought the peace, joy, and wholeness I felt after healing another exile would last forever. I was always surprised, and sometimes discouraged, to find yet another layer of beneath. But I was determined to keep going because I knew I was finding what I have been searching for all of my life.

Through the course of this journey I have written over 50 poems, most of them in times of deep and intense pain, and many of them predictive of where this path would take me. One of them, entitled, “IT MATTERS,” seems to summarize the journey for me. After so many failed attempts to heal my life, I had concluded that my pain, my suffering, my heartache, did not matter. There did not seem to be an answer for it, a solution to it. There was just something defective about me. What did it matter if I spent my life secretly burdened with self-loathing and despair?

But through IFS therapy I have found that it absolutely does matter, as does the pain of every human being, and there is an answer, a solution. I am so very grateful to God, to Dick, to this model, for the internal homecoming I have experienced in my life. I recognize the presence of God and Jesus every time another part is healed and brought home to my heart. Self, to me, is like that sacred presence—where peace, love, safety, and calm abide. For so long I knew that I belonged there—internally at home, unafraid, safe. I just could never seem to stay there.

Now I can. At last I am at peace within. I know myself, like myself, enjoy being with me. I am at rest with God in a way I have believed in for years, yet rarely could experience. The torment is over. The pain is gone. Joy is now my frequent companion. My life and my work are increasingly an overflow of that joy. I am forever grateful.

It is my heart’s desire that sharing this snapshot of my journey, through these writings, will encourage others to fully embrace and experience the healing power of the IFS model.

©Copyright 2007 Karen M. Reed. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. If you’d like to comment on this story, the author has given us permission to accept comments here. All comments are moderated.

Written by Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD

As summer draws to a close you may be relieved to have all your children’s school supplies and clothes ready, but have you done all you can to prepare them for everything they face at school?

Now, on the heels of the Catholic Priest sexual abuse scandal comes another of historic proportions—one that has the potential to be much greater and far-reaching. According to a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, in compliance with the 2002 “No Child Left Behind” act signed into law by President Bush, between 6 and 10 percent of public school children across the country have been sexually abused or harassed by school employees and teachers. Read the rest of this entry