THUNAINot all of the stages of healing apply to every person. Survivors are encouraged to seek professional help so that their support can be tailored specifically to their individual needs. The stages of healing are not in rigid order. These are just helpful tools to visualize your healing process.
Although most of the stages in the healing process are necessary for every survivor, a few of them - the emergency stage, remembering the abuse, confronting family - are not applicable for every person.
Key Points:
- Not all of the stages of healing apply to every person. Survivors are encouraged to seek professional help so that their support can be tailored specifically to their individual needs.
- The stages of healing are not in rigid order. These are just helpful tools to visualise your healing process.
- These stages can be grouped into 3 phases of Stabilisation/Safety, Remembering/Processing and Resolution/Re-integration.
Although most of the stages in the healing process are necessary for every survivor, a few of them - the emergency stage, remembering the abuse, confronting family - are not applicable for every person.
The Decision to Heal:
After recognizing the negative impact of sexual abuse, a person must make an active commitment to heal. Deep healing happens only when one chooses it and is willing to change.
The Emergency Stage:
This could be after a traumatic event or when a survivor is beginning to deal with memories and suppressed feelings that can throw your life into utter turmoil. This is only a stage. It won't last forever.
Remembering:
Many survivors suppress all memories of what happened to them as children. Those who do not forget the actual incidents often forget how it felt at the time. Remembering is the process of getting back both memory and feeling.
Believing It Happened:
Most adult survivors often doubt their own perceptions. Coming to believe that the abuse really happened, and that it really hurt, is a vital part of the healing process.
Breaking Silence:
Most adult survivors kept the abuse a secret in childhood. Telling another trusted human being about what happened is a powerful healing force that can dispel the shame of being a victim.
Understanding That It Wasn't Your Fault:
Children usually believe the abuse is their fault. Adult survivors must place the blame where it belongs - directly on the shoulders of the abusers.
Making Contact With The Child Within:
Many survivors have lost touch with their own vulnerability. Getting in touch with the child within can help one feel compassion for self, more anger at the abuser, and greater intimacy with others.
Trusting Oneself:
The best guide for healing is one's own inner voice - Learn to trust your own perceptions, feelings, and intuition. Grieving is a way to acknowledge pain, let go, and move into the present.
Anger:
Anger is a powerful and liberating force. Whether one needs to get in touch with it or has always had plenty to spare, directing rage squarely at the abuser, and at those who didn't protect the victim, is pivotal to healing.
Disclosures and Confrontations:
Directly confronting the abuser and/or one's family is not for every survivor, but it can be a dramatic, helpful tool.
Resolution and Moving On:
As a person moves through these stages again and again, there will be a point of integration. Feelings and perspectives will stabilize. A survivor will come to terms with the abuser and other family members. While this process won't erase history, the awareness, compassion and power gained in the process will make a deep and lasting impact in life.
Drawn from Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis (see our book review here and a short article here). Please also see Trauma Recovery CA and Courage to Heal