Shepherding Survivors of Sexual Abuse • EFCA Today.
Click the above link for a good read: 6 myths about shepherding sexual abuse survivors. Written by Andrew Schmutzer, OT prof at Moody and editor of the forthcoming multiauthored The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused (Wipf and Stock).
Filed under Abuse, christian counseling, counseling
How would you define humiliation? Is it something done to you or a experience/perception of yours? This might seem like semantics but consider this definition offered up by Richard Mollica in his Invisible Wounds (Harcourt, 2006, p. 72),
Humiliation…is primarily linked to how people believe the world is viewing them.
In this definition I hear that it is the result of objective harm but also related to how we think others see us. So, is it possible to be violated, mistreated, objectified…and not feel humiliation? Could you be stripped naked before a crowd of people and not feel humiliation? I suspect it is possible but not likely, not typical.
At one level, no one cares about the definition. If you feel it, you know someone has done you wrong. Someone has defamed you. Someone has acted in an ungodly way toward you. At another level, maybe it does matter. Does it (in a small way) take the power out of the abusers hands and place it back in your own. Does it enable one to say as Joseph, “what you intended for evil, God intended for good.” Of course, that is very hard to say if you aren’t now the prince of Egypt!
It is probably good to think about how we come to view ourselves and how much power we give to the perceptions of others. However, let every counselor or friend remember, humiliation is real…not something in the fantasy of the victim.
Filed under Abuse, counseling, counseling skills
I’ve written before on the damage done when a community fails to respond to abuse in a justice oriented way. But here is a more succinct and apt quote by Miroslav Volf:
If no one remembers a misdeed or names it publically, it remains invisible. To the observer, its victim is not a victim and its perpetrator is not a perpetrator; both are misperceived because the suffering of the one and the violence of the other go unseen. A double injustice occurs—the first when the original deed is done and the second when it disappears. (italics mine)
Abuse victims sometimes tell us that the most significant damage to them is when community members (family, leaders, peers) fail to “see” or act justly when they hear of the abuse. It was bad enough to be sexually abused (yes, that is real damage too) but far worse to be told it didn’t happen or be told to take it for the sake of the larger community (e.g., you wouldn’t want to harm his reputation, destroy the family, cause others to fall away from Christ, etc.).
I saw this quote in the first pages of The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused, to be released soon by Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf & Stock. I have the typeset PDF and the editor, Andrew Schmutzer, says the book will be released in August. This book (over 500 pages!) may become the place to turn for Christians seeking to understand the scourge of sexual abuse in all its ugly forms. Chapters are written by those who are expert in the social sciences, theology, and pastoral care. The line up is phenomenal. You can see the title page/table of contents (TOC Long Journey Home) to see the gamut of chapters and authors.
What does the decor of your counselor’s office tell you about the person? Or, if you are the counselor, what does your office tell your clients about you?
In the July issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology (58:3, 2011, 310-320), Jack Nasar and Ann Sloan Devlin published, “Impressions of Psychotherapists’ Offices.” In their study (showing pictures of counseling offices) they found a couple of interesting facts:
“Studies 1 and 2 found similar patterns of response in relation to ratings that assessed feelings about the office and the therapist. As perceptions of softness/personalization and order increased, so did expectations about quality of care, comfort, boldness, and qualifications of the therapist. Perceived friendliness increased with increases in softness/personalization.” (p. 314)
This finding isn’t related to gender, age, or prior experience with counseling.
What should counselors avoid? Chaotic, cramped, messy, hard impersonal offices. Put your papers away. The lack of organization and the lack of personalized touches and softer seating may make your clients feel less safe and therefore experience less therapeutic gains.
So, what does your office say to your clients? I recall an office I had in community mental health (shared by several other counselors on a sign-up basis) was sparse, cold, and completely lacking any personalization, art, etc. No wonder many clients preferred talking to us on the street over the office.
My current office contains a love seat, a couple of other chairs, books in a bookcase, a warm wooden desk (that is usually neat in contrast to my academic office), one nice piece of artwork and another that is ugly, some beanie babies, and a blanket. While this office was set up by someone else, I think I’m going to change one bookcase that is in the eyesight of clients. It is a bit messy with various papers, books, and other junk.
Filed under counseling, counseling science, counseling skills
Diane Langberg and I talked recently about the concept of shame. She mentioned reading an interesting mystery that had a couple of lines about shame that might be powerful imagery for some. The novel, C.J. Sansom’s Sovereign, is about a hunchbacked lawyer. About 200 pages in the lawyer has an encounter with King Henry the 8th. The King scorns the lawyer publicly for his hunch (at which everyone laughed).
His first reaction?
“Now I had met him. I felt for a second that he shown me what I was, an unworthy creature, a beetle crawling on the earth.” (p. 221)
Then anger arises in the lawyer. Why? for he recognizes the weight on him is not his own shame, but that of the king.
Whose shame do you carry? Most often we carry either the clear shame of our own misdeeds OR the shame foisted on us by the misdeeds of others. And it seems that the shame put upon us by abuse and maltreatment weighs us down the most. Often those who mistreat us do so in ways to make us believe that in fact we are worthy of shame or that they are righteous in their treatment of us.
What would happen if you saw it not as your own but thrust upon you by those who mistreated you? If you could hand it back (metaphorically), would your own back straighten? Would you feel less dirty and self-negating? If you suffer from shame due to mistreatment, try to imagine that the feelings are not yours but in fact the abusers. Imagine what life might be like if you were to shed that shame that does not belong to you.
Last week my prayer partner John read me a bit from CS Lewis’ “The Business of Heaven“, a daily reader. This little vignette covers the controversial topic of headship. Christians have frequently gotten up in arms over the meaning of headship and submission in the marriage relationship (Ephesians 5:21-33). We can boil most of these arguments down to matters of power. Who gets to be in charge? What is mutual submission? Are you loving right? Submitting right? How often should the decider (thank you George Bush and Saturday Night Live for this wonderful noun) be putting his/her foot down?
Wherever you fall on this discussion of the meaning of the Ephesians 5 passage, the following from Lewis is quite apt:
We must go back to our Bibles. The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the church–read on–and gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is–in her own mere nature–least lovable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bridegroom gives her; he does not find, but makes her lovely. The chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man’s marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence. As Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that Bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labours to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other) never despairs… (p. 169-170)
There is a lot of substance in the above quote. You might do well to read it again, slowly. I gather a couple of crucial points.
Lewis goes on to say that he does not mean to baptize difficult or miserable marriage. There is no extra value to martyrdom. He only wishes to remind us that it is easy to point out the flaws of another in such a way that makes our self-serving choices legitimate. Even when we must refuse a loved one or confront them about their flaws, it should be done for their sake, and not our own.
U.S. Children Misdiagnosed with Bipolar Disorder – Newsweek
The above link is to an article I just read regarding the overdiagnosis of bipolar disorder in children. Written by a Dr. Kaplan (child psychiatrist), he notes that many children with ADHD or ODD have been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder due to temper tantrums, grandiosity, impulsivity, racing thoughts, elevated silliness, etc. These symptoms are really happening but Dr. Kaplan does not believe they are associated with bipolar disease (and thus not appropriate to be treated with medications like Lithium, Wellbutrin, or Depakote). Dr. Kaplan goes on to say that he thinks there isn’t any scientific evidence of bipolar beginning in childhood.
Not sure I would agree with him about this but I do agree that bipolar is an easy target when a child has frequent outbursts and is difficult to rein in. He and others are right to point out that irritability is not a good indicator of bipolar disease. Nor is emotional lability a good indicator. Many ADHD kids end up with a bipolar diagnosis when they should not have it.
What should the overdiagnosis tell us? It is not really about “big pharma” trying to drug our kids. It is not about psychiatrists just wanting to push pills. It is about overwhelmed parents and teachers who do not know what to do with the overwhelming emotional/behavioral rollercoaster some children exhibit. They (parents and kids) need help and our understanding of these issues (lability, irritability, grandiosity, tantrums, etc.) and how to best help these children are poor.
Rather than beat up on the system, let us figure out better methods to parent and counsel these types of children.
Filed under anger, counseling, counseling science, counseling skills, Psychology
Join Meredith Andrews, Dove Award winning Christian artist, in a concert to benefit She’s My Sister and celebrate the conclusion of the She’s My Sister Bike Tour. Each $10 ticket will provide Scripture-based trauma care to one abused woman in the Congo. The concert will be held at Calvary Baptist Church in Easton, Pa. on Friday, July 8 at 8:00 p.m. Purchase tickets online at www.congosister.org or contact Hannah Wildasin for group sales at 610-360-3864.
Filed under Abuse, Christianity, counseling
One of the things a counselor does in meeting a new client is to ask, “tell me what you have tried thus far to solve this problem.” We ask this question because we know we are not the first stop for most folks trying to solve a problem. Whether it is a parent seeking a way to manage a child’s misbehavior, a couple seeking help in changing the way they talk to each other, or an individual trying to address an ongoing anxiety problem, most people have tried and not found adequate success–which is why they come to see us.
But, let me tell you what goes through my head when I suggest a couple of options/approaches my client might try and they respond with, “I tried it…it doesn’t work.” My internal, private response?
Define try. Define work.
Now that probably sounds negative but I don’t mean it that way at all. What I mean to communicate is that I do not yet know what this person tried, for how long, and what result, if any, was achieved. What I do know is that my work is cut out for me because the client statement usually conveys a closedness to trying that particular intervention (or similar ones) again. My job is to ask questions to understand each word: try and work.
There are a couple of commons ways people try solutions to problems. They may try something without proper consultation. They may try something in an intermittent manner. Let me give you some examples. Parents may try a reinforcement strategy with a child but fail to find a powerful enough reinforcer to make the system work. Or, a couple may try a speaker/listener technique but revert in the middle back to a debate/invalidating mode. A couple may need to take a “time out” or break to avoid a conflict escalation but the one asking for a break may do so using it as a power move (“I’m outta here!) rather than a de-escalation attempt.
A good technique may or may not work, depending on any number of reasons. Some interventions really won’t work for a particular person or setting. However, it is important to recognize that some interventions fail to work for reasons already mentioned above and others may fail to “work” because of client expectations. For example, a parent may try a particular intervention with their child to reduce angry outbursts. Then, the parent returns to counseling the next week and tells the counselor the intervention didn’t work. Upon deeper investigation the parent does admit that the number of outbursts reduced, the duration of the outbursts shortened. Why did they feel that the intervention didn’t work? Well, last night they have a horrible blowout and very small irritating interactions each day. So, the intervention may have worked even though the parent is feeling very worn out and discouraged. Or, in the couple illustration, listening technique may enable the couple to fight less but one spouse feels that the other has a history of being self-centered and thus cannot trust the reasons they are now trying to do a better job. So, they interpret short-term success as not real or legitimate.
Counselors often give homework. For homework interventions to work, a counselor should: (a) make a very clear explanation of what should be done, when, and how often, (b) what results, if any, to note, (c) the short and long-term purpose of this intervention, and (d) follow up next week to see how the client fared and what alterations might need to be made in the following week.
Counselors do well not to oversell the value of the intervention, admit that not all interventions work and that troubleshooting is an essential part of counseling, write down their homework requests for clients, and make sure that the homework given fits the client’s level of commitment to the process.
My supervisor, mentor, and colleague, Dr. Diane Langberg has been telling us for some time that “trauma is the mission field of our time.” Recently, however, a few Christian NGO/Missions leaders have heard this line in one of her talks and have become electrified by it. I cited it last week in a board meeting at Biblical as I was trying to make the case that developing postgraduate trauma training at Biblical fits our mission: following Jesus into the world.
But, some of you have not heard her give one of these talks. For you, I point you to the World Reformed Fellowship website so you can read a report she made on June 5 regarding the problem of trauma and the opportunity of the church to have a hand in healing this man-made scourge. Below is an excerpt of that short report. Do go to the WRF link and read it in its entirety. The report is not long but it is powerful and includes a couple of specific comments from two leaders in Africa.
We are the church. That means we are the body of Jesus Christ and He is our Head. In the physical realm, a body that does not follow its head is a sick body. That is also true in the spiritual realm. We are His people and I believe with all my heart He has called us to go out of ourselves and follow Him into the suffering of this world bearing both His character and His Word. And we do go – we send missionaries and the Scriptures; we provide food, clean water, education and jobs for many. And we should. We have rarely, however, seen trauma as a place of service. If we think carefully about the extensive natural disasters in our time such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis and combine those victims with the many manmade disasters – the violent inner cities, wars, genocides, trafficking, rapes, and child abuse we would have a staggering number. I believe that if we would stop and look out on suffering humanity we would begin to realize that trauma is perhaps the greatest mission field of the 21st century.
Musings on Faith and Psychology 