Healing from Sexual Abuse

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...A Body-Centered Therapy Approach

When we have been sexually abused, we cut ourselves off from our body, its feelings and sensations. This estrangement from our bodies occurs because as children we were unable to tolerate the feelings of fear, hurt, pain and conflicting feelings of arousal that accompanied our abuse. Adaptive coping mechanisms of dissociation, denial, minimizing and numbing became natural responses to our trauma.

Through a Body-Centered Therapy Approach, Lisa provides counselling support that allows you to re-connect to your bodily sensations and feelings which, in turn, helps you to re-associate. This process of re-attaching to oneself offers more opportunity to consciously choose affirming behaviors rather than reacting automatically from behaviors and patterns that can be self-defeating and that developed early on as defenses to protect ourselves and to keep us safe.

These defensive patterns can serve an adaptive purpose early on in our lives and yet by mid-life, the benefits diminish and the harmful effects can often be felt. What started out as an innocent social drink at a party at the age of twenty to sooth anxiety can develop into a full blown alcohol addiction by our late thirties. You may have valued your ‘independence’ as a young man and this may develop into loneliness as you find yourself alone in your 40’s.

For a while, avoidance seems like the right answer

It isn’t easy to address sexual abuse. In her mid-40’s, confronting the unraveling of her own marriage, Lisa made a conscious decision to address her own childhood sexual abuse. While she had approached the subject academically in her graduate thesis (“Long-term Consequences of Sexual Abuse on Women”), she steered away from this sensitive topic for more than a decade and a half before seeking help. While many conventional, cognitive approaches to sexual abuse therapy were modestly helpful, Lisa found the Body-Centered Therapy Approach modeled by Doug & Naomi Moseley of the greatest help in the challenging task of reclaiming past hurts and wounds.

Due to her deep personal understanding of her own abuse and its effects, Lisa is able to bring a unique perspective to helping other sexually abused men and women who are struggling with addictions, sexuality issues, eating difficulties, intimacy concerns, dissociation and difficulties with feeling and expressing their emotions.

A Body-Centered Therapy Approach

We can only go so far in our healing if we do not include our body. If we chose to continue to live in our heads, we are caught in the cycle of survival behaviors that are conditioned in our bodies and we respond as if we are still being abused.

To survive our sexual abuse we deaden or numb ourselves, and lose access to the innate healing power of our body. Talking about our experiences and feelings is an essential part of the healing process, however, talking alone does not clear out the feelings and emotions that we hold in our body.

A Body-Centered Therapy Approach supports us to bring to awareness our stored body memories. Once the feelings associated with our body memories have been accessed and expressed with Lisa's guidance, we need to learn to be with them if we are to live an alive and balanced life. One of the important ways to be with our feelings is to build a container to hold them.

This approach helps to identify our particular habitual behavioral patterns and to uncover the associated feelings and sensations that drive them. Once these have been experienced and worked with, an opportunity exists for change.

Most of us have not listened to our bodies. A big part of learning to care for ourselves and make ourselves a priority is through a daily practice of self-care. This includes eating well, adopting regular sleep habits, exercising regularly and practicing a body-focused meditation. These practices help us to hear our bodies and become more vital and well.

If we are willing to engage the wisdom of our body and allow it to be our guide, we can deepen the healing process, breaking out of our habitual behaviors and opening the way to new possibilities.

Some excellent resources on sexual abuse:

The Courage to Heal-A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, 4^th Edition, 2008

The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment, Babette Rothschild,2000

Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma, Staci Haines,2007

www.Relationship Counselling.Ca

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