Counselling for Sexual Abuse

Undesired sexual behaviour from one person onto another is regarded as sexual abuse.  This can be once-off incident or repetitive occurrences.  It can either involve contact or, indeed, be contactless.  Victims can be of any age and both women or men can be affected.

Many abused children hope that growing up to adulthood will bring escape and freedom from the pain of their experiences – it rarely does!  Unfortunately, the child that has experienced abuse in their past does not adapt well to adult life.  Survivors of sexual abuse generally struggle to trust, they fear making choices, they experience intimacy issues, and they generally seek something outside of themselves to validate that they are good, smart, have done a good job, look good, etc.  This latter issue is called needing ‘external validation’.  

Over the years I have worked with people to help them firstly to deal with the trauma of the abuse.  Some clients do not wish to recount their abuse experiences while others very much need their experience to be heard – and maybe validated for the first time ever.  In my work, I believe in letting the client guide me about what would be most helpful to them – every person is different and I want to be true to each individual.   The process involves exploring how the abuse continues to impact on their life as an adult and to help them develop strategies to break out of this bind.

I work with people to take back power over their lives and move forward.  I can help you too.