Child Molester or Pedophile – Is There A Difference & What Drives Them

Sexual abuse of children is not a new problem, nor have the statistics changed. “1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 14; 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 16.” (Hopper, J. (1998). Child Sexual Abuse: Statistics, Research, & Resources. Boston, MA Boston University School of Medicine.) This issue is as old as time, but we are finally paying attention to it in a new way. Whether it is in the church, sports, boys clubs, schools or families, there have always been environmental pockets in society that foster these deviants. Whether it is about sex or power, children have always been the most vulnerable segment of the population, and their rights need to be more conscientiously protected.

Pedophilia is a psychological disorder that is thought to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors and may run in families. That latter fact may be the result of genetic defects or because pedophiles often were victims of sexual abuse themselves as children and then became perpetrators later on in a victim to perpetrator cycle of abuse. What is known about pedophiles is that they are driven early on by strong urges and fantasies to connect emotionally and sexually with children. Whether they are driven by social, sexual anxiety, brain trauma, poor impulse control, or even psychosis, these individuals feel an emotional congruence with children that translates into sexual desire. Sometimes pedophiles are looking to dominate, or just use children, as a substitute for an adult relationship. But usually, they are more comfortable with children and seek ways to be around them.

Child Molesters are opportunists who sporadically use children to gratify a sexual urge, but who are capable of adult relationships as well. Additionally, child molesters are driven by power rather than by sex. They don’t feel compelled to be with children, they simply use them. These individuals are criminals and should be treated as such.  While Pedophiles need psychotherapy and medication as well as punishment if there is any hope of altering their behavior.

“True pedophiles are responsible for only a small percentage of child sexual molestations. Half of child sexual abusers are the parents of the victims; other relatives commit an additional 18%of the offenses. And while active pedophiles are generally single men between the ages of 16 and 35, child molesters are generally married men, of any age, who are primarily drawn to their own children and/or step children.” (Pedophilia and Child Sexual Molestation -sponsored by PSC Crisis Connection site -Internet)

Pedophiles are drawn to pre-pubescent children and rationalize their behavior, believing that they love the child, want a relationship with them and are not harming them. Child Molesters are manipulators who strictly overpower their victim by means of sexual degradation in order to control them. And they may continue to molest the same victim for years because they are not fixated on a certain age, as are most pedophiles. Accessibility and convenience play a bigger role for the child molester.

Both pedophiles and child molesters are primarily male and primarily heterosexual. There are a small percentage of female child molesters, but female pedophiles are extremely rare. While we are finally recognizing and dealing with the pervasiveness of this problem across certain institutions, most molestation occurs in the home, behind closed doors, among family members. The U.S. Department of Justice (1997) and Finkelhor & Ormond (2001) claim, “More than 90% of all sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator. Almost 50% of the offenders are household members and 38% are already acquaintances of the victims.” Unfortunately, as a society, we are only scratching the surface of this problem. Victims are too young, too afraid and too psychologically manipulated to come forward. Other family members are in denial. And we are held back by either respect for privacy or ignorance from recognizing what might be taking place literally next door

The time has come for a National discourse on this issue. Every day I meet young women and men who have not only had to live through childhood sexual abuse but are continually re-traumatized by shame, confusion and self-hatred. Even as adults they don’t know how to stand up for themselves, because they have been led to believe that somehow they were responsible for what happened and have been ruined forever. Children need to be supported in the understanding that whether it is a friend of the family, a family member, or even their parent, they must look for help. And we adults have to be more available to listen and to help them.

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT

GENDER AND IDENTITY

Inspired by the life of Lana Wachowski:

Gender is defined as a set of characteristics – masculine, feminine or neuter, while Gender Identity is a person’s sense of and private experience of their own gender. Transgender suggests that the state of one’s gender identity does not match one’s assigned sexual gender, usually based on physical characteristics – anatomy.

Our society delineates gender as a sexual binary system.  You are either male or female.  And we have assigned a set of characteristics to these two genders – masculine and feminine characteristics that have altered somewhat over the past century but still look similar to those characteristics that have existed for hundreds of years. Transgender identity is considered an outlier – an extreme condition that society still does not fully understand or accept.  Actual gender transition via surgery is rare.  However transgender transition is not the end of the story.  The spectrum of gender identification – the subtleties of transgender identity – are much more complex, nuanced and widespread than we as a society have been able to acknowledge and tolerate.

Let’s start with children.  We acknowledge that not all little girls are “girly” and not all little boys are the rough and tumble types.  Names have been assigned to those who fall outside the norm – tomboy or sporty for a girl, sensitive or shy for a boy.

Little children may not discriminate, but their own parents oftentimes do.  How many of you have encountered an exasperated father whose boy didn’t participate in sports or act like “the son I always wanted” and therefore dad emotionally punishes him?  I worked with one father – a thoughtful man, who while not abusive, was distraught because his four-year-old boy preferred pushing a vacuum around the house rather than play ball outside.  None of these kinds of preferences, by the way, is indicative of impending homosexuality.  But is that the reason that these men are so threatened by their sons’ behaviors?

In adolescence, being different becomes more difficult and painful.  Even today, taunting and bullying accompanied by slurs and innuendos are still prevalent.  Girls begin to feel pressure to look a certain way that is in line with current beauty trends, and boys are pressured to behave a certain way – bigger versions of those sons that those distraught fathers wanted.  New labels emerge for the boys who don’t fit in – nerds, geeks, fags or weirdos.  Eating Disorders, depression, self-mutilation, sexual acting out, drinking and drugs are common coping methods for many of these kids who don’t fit in.  While we as a society have predominantly focused on bad parenting, physical deficiencies, I.Q., and homosexuality as some of the causes, we have not paid enough attention to the gender spectrum and how more subtle differences in gender identity can play a part as well.

We live in a society that celebrates individuality without really allowing people to be truly individual.  If we look at gender as a spectrum starting with feminine at one point and concluding with masculine at the other end, and we assigned 50 people places on that spectrum, we would see that most everyone of those people would fall on their own particular spot with hardly any of them falling on exactly the same spot.  These differences are partially chemical (estrogen, androgen, testosterone, white matter ratios, etc.), partially temperament (behavioral characteristics that are gender identified), and partly socialization (childhood experiences). Whatever the particular formula, people are not simply reflections of their anatomical parts.  And Transgenders are not just individuals who want to transition to the opposite sex or want to be in a radically different sexual role.

The time has come to be more aware and accepting of the way that people feel inside – how they identify themselves on the gender spectrum – rather than simply labeling them by how they look or who they want to have sex with.

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT

www.roniweisbergross.com

Attachment Issues In Couples Therapy

I have always enjoyed therapy with couples.  It is stimulating, interactive work and can create dramatic change quickly.  By strengthening a couples’ communication pattern, you not only help them to improve their relationship, but help them to learn more about themselves and what drives their behavior. And as with individual therapy, if the clients are motivated to change, they will.  But after years of doing the work, I still marvel at the difficulty of creating lasting change when dealing with a co-dependent relationship based on negative attachment issues.

Because I work a lot with Abuse and Trauma Survivors, many couples who come to see me have that in one or both of their backgrounds. Childhood abuse can create long-term trauma and attachment issues, even personality disorders. And people are oftentimes attracted to others whose ability to attach and interactional style are complementary.

For example, it is quite common for adults from alcoholic families to become attracted to other adult children of alcoholics, even if neither of them is an alcoholic. They are attracted not just because they have similar backgrounds, but also because their communication style and ability to be intimate is probably similar. They both are used to living with people who had secrets and who were likely to be passive aggressive in their communication styles. They may be used to care taking, and to boundaries that were breached, especially when a parent was abusing substances. They may also have been traumatized by physical and/or sexual abuse. When two people are drawn to each other, they don’t have to know all the details of their respective backgrounds to feel a kinship. By the time they come into therapy they know each other’s vulnerabilities and how to push each other’s buttons, but they may not be equally prepared to change the interactional pattern they have established between them.

A while back, I worked with a couple* who had both experienced abuse in their childhoods. They had been together for 9 years, married 4 of them.  He was the one who called and wanted couples therapy, claiming that their relationship was unhealthy. He said he was angry a lot because she was cold and he didn’t feel taken care of or loved by her. He thought that her abusive background had damaged her sexuality and her ability to love. And that made him scared to bring children into the mix – something she was pushing for.

When I met with them the first time, she seemed emotionless and impervious to his complaints, but willing to go along with his wishes to be in therapy. But as the weeks went by, it became evident that she was the one doing all the work to change, while he used a debater’s skill and keen intellect to keep her on the defensive. She wasn’t nurturing and attentive enough. She wasn’t social enough. She wasn’t professionally ambitious, but she also worked too much. What I recognized was that she was actually a pleaser, but also passive aggressive. That combination of traits is not uncommon. The pleaser is usually stuffing their own feelings, so their resentment builds and manifests in other ways. While he could be insightful, he didn’t seem to notice all the attempts she made. More importantly, he didn’t seem to believe that he needed to change as well. When I tried to bring that up, he seemed wounded and implied that we were ganging up on him.

I asked each of them to come in for an individual session. I sometimes do this with couples when I feel that one or both are withholding in the room. He encouraged her to come in first. Now, alone with me, she proceeded to point out everything that I had been noticing. Additionally, she was aware that she was jumping through hoops, but it didn’t seem to matter. She talked about his insecurities and dark moods and how he took everything out on her. Clearly frustrated, she said, “I’m still very physically attracted to him, and we do have an active sex life, but how can I be warm and tender when I am constantly being put down?”

I asked if she could imagine standing up for herself in the relationship. Could she help him understand that she wasn’t responsible for making him feel better about himself?  The look of recognition on her face seemed to confirm that she could. When the session was over, she grabbed my hand and thanked me.

I later mused about how common it was for one partner to come in seeking change, identifying the other as the problem, only to discover how much more complicated the situation was and how both parties were responsible for the friction between them.

A few days later I received an anxious call from her. She said an opportunity had presented itself, and in the gentlest manner possible, she pointed out how he sometimes took his frustrations out on her rather than on the people or situations they should be directed at. “He went ballistic and walked out. You know, he doesn’t want to hear that anything is wrong with him.” I suggested that she give him some time to think about what she said. He wasn’t used to being confronted, it may have been difficult to take in.

There was a long silence and then she stated emphatically, “No I am going to apologize and try harder. He needs to feel more loved by me.”  “But isn’t that what you have been doing all along? How is it going to be any different this time?”  Her reply, “Well, we’ve managed to remain together this long, so I guess I know how to make it work.”

Clients make their own choices – rightly so. And only they know what they are ready to do. These clients were both intelligent and insightful. But change is hard. And sometimes things do get worse before they get better. So it may seem easier to fall back into what is familiar, whether or not it is truly satisfying.

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT

http://www.roniweisbergross.com

* Certain identifying information has been changed to protect confidentiality.

The Sexual Predator’s Partner in Crime

Two recent stories raised my ire – once again – about the culpability of those who enable sexual predators. By enabler, I am referring primarily to the predator’s spouse, partner or parent. I sit here and wonder why citizens aren’t held legally responsible for notifying authorities if they become aware of an adult molesting a minor. If you watch someone being murdered and do nothing, or you help a murderer not get caught, you are an accessory to that crime. Molestation murders a child’s soul. The child may live, but their life will never be the same.

While everyone was riveted by the allegations against Jerry Sandusky and a corrupt system that allowed him to continue hurting young boys, I was focused on Dorothy Sandusky, the dutiful, religious wife who turned a deaf ear to the victims who called for help, and a blind eye to the provocative scenes she witnessed. Of course, at this point, I believe that Mrs. Sandusky had to be in total denial about the crimes she never tried to stop. But what led her down this path? When did she consciously or unconsciously decide to ignore the truth in order to preserve the reality she wanted?

Partners of Predators aren’t necessarily mentally unbalanced or amoral people. Nor are they driven by uncontrollable impulses, like the Predators themselves. They may be kind and loving and decent in every other respect – as Mrs. Sandusky supposedly was. Is it loyalty, denial, weakness, fear that forces their hand? Perhaps. But that doesn’t let them off the hook. In fact, I personally find the partners of predators even more accountable, because the predators themselves don’t believe they are doing something wrong. Their actions are criminal, but they truly believe otherwise. Meanwhile, the partner is allowing crimes to be committed in order to hold on to a life they know, a life they may not want to disrupt. Chuck Williams, a professor at Drexel University, and an expert on dealing with child abuse, when speaking recently about the spouses of child abusers said, “they often sense that something is wrong but rationalize that the cost of taking action might be greater than turning a blind eye.” And it doesn’t stop there.

It was reported that when Dorothy Sandusky first heard about the sexual abuse charges leveled against her husband, instead of expressing either horror or sympathy for the victims, she said, “for all Jerry’s done for these kids all these years, how could a few of them turn their stories around and make him seem so bad”. And after Victim #4 movingly testified about his sexual abuse, Dorothy took the stand and coldly alluded to what a manipulative child he had been. Which brings me to the other story I referred to at the beginning of this article. This story hasn’t been in the headlines, and like thousands of others, will never get the public’s attention. But it’s just as heart wrenching.

The following is a post I received from a reader of an article I wrote entitled “Sibling Abuse – Children Abusing Other Children”:

“I was abused by my brother who was 6 years my senior.  I remember when I was only 5 or 6 years old, I went to my mom and told her that my brother (who was 12) was making me touch him down there. She called me a liar and told me to go away. It didn’t stop with sexual abuse. He abused me verbally, physically and emotionally. My mom saw it; she had to. But she always ignored what he did wrong. The abuse continued for years, way past the point when he should have known better. And to this day, she makes excuses for him. This has affected my whole life. I have been in a series of abusive relationships as an adult and have just recently realized why. Yet I am the one who has been pushed aside and ignored. Since starting therapy I have tried to talk to my mother about this. Her response was that if it was so bad when I was little, why didn’t I call social services? She is still blaming me!  My therapist says that I shouldn’t waste any more energy on my mother.  She will never acknowledge her part in my abuse let alone apologize for it.”

The time has come for those who do nothing to be held accountable.

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT

Http://www.LosAngelessexualabusetherapist.com

Helping Adults Abused as Children (Sexual Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse)

When I began working as a psychotherapist many years ago, I was told that if I hadn’t already picked a specialization, it would pick me.  And that is exactly what happened.

I worked in a non-profit clinic where we had big caseloads, having to see many more people each week than one would ordinarily see in private practice.  Within weeks I realized that a significant number of the people I met with had been abused as children.  When I probed deeper with other clients, more of them revealed they had been abused – if not sexually, than emotionally or physically.  I was drawn to these people.  They felt like kindred spirits, because I too had come from an abusive past.  And so, it became a logical decision to follow this path, and to make childhood abuse a specialized focus of my practice.

None of us come from perfect backgrounds.  And children adapt to their circumstances – no matter how brutal.  The difference is, that children who adapt to abuse, have to turn inward and create their own reality in order to survive.  And that reality emotionally separates them from the world as they grow up.  Children in abusive environments are like houseplants that bend towards windows with light.  They reach out for sustenance and lose their natural shape.  Children who don’t feel safe tend to deny their own needs and desires in order to please those around them.  They turn their anger inward.  They feel that they must be doing something bad or wrong, because to think that its not them, that it is the adults around them doing something bad, is just too frightening to imagine.

So these children bend, like those sun starved plants.  And they grow up believing that they are bad – different – something is inherently wrong with them.  At the same time, they are not taught healthy interactive behaviors or tools to use in society.  So when they go out in the world, not only do they have trouble engaging in relationships, but when they do, they are apt to repeat the unhealthy behaviors that they were taught.  If your primary role models in life were unhealthy adults, then how are you supposed to grow up and suddenly become a healthy adult yourself?  You may have been born with good instincts.  But you were forced not to listen to those instincts and just do whatever you had to do to survive.

 

That is where psychotherapy comes in.  Therapy provides a safe place to explore the past and the present.  To take a clear look at our lives and figure out how we can make it better, make ourselves happier.  If we don’t feel this way when we walk in the door, we do come to discover that we can no longer blame others for our inner turmoil.  Yes people have hurt us– and adults who have survived childhood abuse, have been hurt and betrayed in the worst possible way.  But we can’t change the past.  And we can’t change others.

 

Human beings are meant to grow and change.  Being stuck is not a natural instinct.  Therapy helps us to gain a perspective on how we behave, where those behaviors originated, and how they are hurting or hindering us now.  People usually don’t enter therapy unless they have run through all of their other coping devices.  Their back is against a wall, and there is nowhere left to go but to change from within.  Addictions no longer work.  And by addictions, I don’t just mean substance abuse, but any behavior that is repetitive and feels shameful or secret.  Whether it is sex, food, spending money, self-abusing or abusing others, it is a coping devise, and it is addictive.

Trust is a huge issue with survivors of childhood abuse.  And it is a central aspect of the work that I do with my clients.  I take this issue very seriously.  We work, first and foremost, to build a trusting, safe relationship.  That alone is curative.  We also identify emotional and external goals.  And we explore their life – past and present – to make them conscious of what they do.  To consider what has worked and what hasn’t worked, in order to nurture inner resilience.  Most importantly, to allow self-love, which may have eluded them in the past, to come to light now.

We must never lose our belief in the possibility of change.  In the end, that is all we have.

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT

http:www.roniweisbergross.com

 

Couples Therapy With Trauma and Abuse Survivors

We all come into relationships with past issues. Trust, ability to be intimate, anger management, mental and physical health limitations and childhood trauma are among the most common. Each issue colors, although in a different way, how we deal with current stressors and disagreements. This article will look at how having a partner who has survived childhood abuse (sexual, emotional, physical) can affect the relationship.

First let me say that I believe that people are unconsciously attracted to those whose psychological challenges fit together with their own. Their backgrounds may be entirely different, but a couple’s strengths and deficits interconnect in a way that feels familiar – feels “like home”. So I never look at a couple, where one of them has experienced childhood trauma, and think that that particular person has a problem and the other doesn’t. Yet, I often receive calls from partners of childhood abuse survivors saying, ” We are having problems – can you fix him/her?”  My answer is always the same:  ”I can’t fix anybody, but I can look at how you two interact and hopefully help you both modify your behaviors”. If the person I am speaking with is not prepared to take any responsibility, I never hear back from them.

That said, if childhood trauma is not acknowledged and dealt with soon after it occurs, there are lingering negative effects that can hinder adult relationships and hinder the ability to be emotionally and sometimes sexually intimate. The desire to be in a safe and loving relationship can be undermined by the survivor’s past experience of betrayal and cruelty by loved ones. Each person deals with trauma in a different way depending on their particular circumstances and their temperament. But all unhealed trauma causes emotional dysregulation and low self-esteem. Trauma survivors expend more energy than others managing anxiety, depression and anger. Those who have repressed memories experience unexplained emotional triggers, nightmares, and/or intrusive negative thoughts.

Children whose trauma was either never acknowledged or purposely invalidated, had to find their own way of surviving the incident(s). If they were betrayed by loved ones they either disassociated from their feelings, compartmentalized – there was the good daddy and the bad daddy – or they turned against themselves and adopted the story that they were to blame for everything that happened. As adults, that means of survival turns into self-loathing.

People who are attracted to unhealed trauma survivors are often caretakers or controlling types. They often come from homes where boundaries were not respected (i.e. emotionally fused families, alcoholic families, families with emotional abuse). They are drawn to their partner’s wounds and emotional fragility. That connection can create even more emotional dysregulation in the relationship, or it can be used to heal.

When working with couples where one partner has been identified as an abuse survivor, I first look to create safety - safety with me, safety with their partner, and safety within themselves. “In situations like this, people often feel unsafe in their bodies and confused in their thinking. Feeling safe in your primary relationship is a crucial place to begin to rebuild trust and safety in your world.” (Phillips and Kane, “Healing Together”, 2008, p. 20).

The survivor may have told their partner the story of their past – perhaps many times. Even so, revisiting the trauma in a psychological setting can confirm and validate their feelings in a manner that creates a deeper connection between them. And connection is what the survivor needs most. Because one of the most insidious effects of abuse is that it disconnects the child leaving him/her feeling isolated, ashamed and unlovable. That sense of isolation and feeling different and unlovable is carried into adulthood. The most innocent behavior by their mate can trigger traumatic memories and defensive reactions in an abuse survivor. The therapist needs to help the couple jointly process how the past influences the present.

The next step is to help the partners find new ways of interacting. Clear communication and active listening promotes emotional regulation for the abuse survivor and mutual respect in the relationship. This in turn creates safety and stabilizes the relationship so that more nuanced problem solving of current issues can take place.

Mindfulness of your own behavior and how it impacts your partner is an important part of couples work. When you are dealing with a person with past trauma it is even more important. Together the couple needs to explore the emotional triggers that derail them. As with revisiting the story of an abusive past, exploring emotional triggers in a safe setting with your partner, helps the survivor feel seen, loved and supported. The result is a positive reconnection for the survivor and hope for the couple.

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT

http://www.roniweisbergross.com

2012

Somatization – The Secrets Our Bodies Hold

Our bodies cry out in two ways – either through emotion or illness. When we understand our body’s pain we articulate it. When we can’t understand it, we are overwhelmed by emotional and/or physical sensations.  And we feel powerless. While we need to understand what is happening to us, we may not always find the answers.  But we can make peace with our emotions, just as we learn to make peace with other unanswerable events in our life – and in fact, with life itself.

I deal with Trauma in my work. I work extensively with adults who have been sexually, emotionally or physically abused as children. I see the effects of trauma, years, even decades, after it occurred. While just about everyone experiences traumatic events; it is not the occurrence of trauma but how an individual deals with a traumatic event(s) that determines the impact it will have on his or her life.  When trauma occurs at a very early age, it is just as important, maybe even more important, how the adults caring for the child deal with it.  If trauma isn’t swiftly and compassionately dealt with, it lodges in our system like a cancer.  And it can cause symptoms over the years that are chronic and troubling.

Many of my clients who were abused as children, now suffer from chronic pain, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal disturbances, eating disorders, migraine headaches, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, and other autoimmune diseases.  Others, who aren’t physically ill, complain of excessive anxiety, uncontrollable anger, continuous self destructive, self-hurting behavior, obsessive-compulsive behavior or “numbing out” (disassociation). This last symptom is a very common reaction to extreme trauma. While they know with every fiber of their being that they have been hurt, many have vague or conflicting memories.  Some have no memories whatsoever.  Many experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which affects their body’s ability to remember and express emotion in a healing manner.  But they insist that their body knows the truth.

Every traumatic experience – whatever the age of the victim – triggers a chain of electrical chemical reactions beginning or shooting to the brain and then moving throughout the body.  Long-term trauma overwhelms our nervous systems, which can then malfunction producing a chronic, underlying state of dysregulation or imbalance in the body. The result is either continuous over-reactive, hyperactive reactions (panic, anxiety or disassociation) or continuous unresponsive, freezing reactions. The brain cannot differentiate between real or imagined threats.  Constant anxiety or hypervigilance wears down the immune system and physical illness can occur as well.
In the last decade, enormous advances have been made in the field of Neurobiology.  While in the past, we believed that most brain development occurred in the first few years of life, we now know that our brains are changing throughout our life – and not just by means of internal biological development.  Our brain is continuously affected by and continuously changing through the effect of outside environmental factors as well.  We can actually see these changes on brain scans taken over a period of time.   We call this ability of our brain to adapt and change, Neuroplasticity.

This is good news.  Because while it tells us that we are continually vulnerable, it also tells us that we can continually change.  We have the ability to heal ourselves emotionally AND physically – if the physical issues are solely the result of trauma.  Overall, the most effective method of treatment has proven to be a combination of psychological therapy and psychotropic medication.  Both alter receptors in the brain, which then re-regulate our emotional and physiological states.  As we become more aware of how our mind is working, accessing that which is unconsciously hurting us and making it conscious, we can begin to refine and alter our mental experiences.

Roni Weisberg-Ross   L.M.F.T

http://www.roniweisbergross.com

February 26, 2012

Covert/Emotional Incest – How real is it?

There are an increasing number of psychology articles and books dealing with covert incest, otherwise known as emotional incest. This form of incest is described as a relationship where a parent turns a child into a partner or confidante that is inappropriate to the child’s age and life experience. Or to put it another way, when a child is manipulated into the role of a surrogate wife or husband by a needy parent.

While some refer to this as covert incest, others refer to it as emotional incest.

But is there a difference between covert and emotional incest?  And does either term represent a distinct and relevant diagnosis – one that creates long-term psychological damage?  Those who call it covert incest say labeling it emotional incest is inadequate because “this label misleads by implying an absence of sexual damage” (Adams, 1991).  However, anything I’ve ever read on emotional incest refers to the sexual as well as emotional impairments created by this relationship.  My impression is that there isn’t any significant difference.  And when it comes to long-term psychological damage, I find current theories provocative but over-generalized and unsubstantiated.

Some of the more popular books – “Silently Seduced”, “Sexual Addiction and Covert Incest”, and especially “The Emotional Incest Syndrome – What to Do When a Parent’s Love Rules Your life” – make articulate arguments for a long list of emotional and sexual impairments.  But when you are told that as a result of covert/emotional incest a child can become either over or under sexualized, insecure or narcissistic (part of the same personality type anyway), develop a love/hate relationship with the offending parent, become compulsive or addictive (again part of the same personality type), or guilty and confused over personal needs, then you have covered just about all the bases of possible dysfunctional results and the term becomes a catchall, watered down diagnosis.

Then there is the matter of definition; “using a child to meet a parent’s own unmet emotional needs”.  What child has not been used to meet a parent’s own unmet emotional needs? The reason to have children in the first place usually fulfills unmet emotional (or in earlier times financial) needs.  I realize that it is the degree of use involved, and that it is specifically using the child “as a partner”, but that still covers too much blurred emotional territory in the average family unit. That is because parents – like everyone else – are flawed human beings.  And their boundaries, except in the most rigid of environments, falter, resulting in their children periodically being used, manipulated, leaned on, guilted or shamed into situations which challenge their sovereignty and emotional health.  Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to quantify what is the amount of misuse of roles after which long-term damage occurs.  Children come into the world with different temperaments and genetic variation.  What might destroy one child can make another stronger.  When an action never makes one stronger, as in the case of sexual incest, then you have a clearer diagnosis.

Having said all this, I am not dismissing “covert/emotional incest” altogether. I am however, questioning it as a separate diagnosis from emotional abuse.  And I am also questioning how to treat it.  Emotional Abuse creates trauma and distrust.  It undermines a person’s self esteem and ability to enter into and maintain intimate relationships.  When you have been hurt and betrayed by those who were closest to you, those who were supposed to protect you and teach you how to function in the world, then you become emotionally handicapped in so many ways.  Instead of creating more provocative diagnoses, let’s look at each individual and deal with their specific pain and their specific deficits.  Let’s refrain from continually categorizing people’s pain.  When we do that, we miss their humanity, their specialness, and possibly their particular strategy for strengthening self-agency.

Roni Weisberg-Ross  LMFT

December 29, 2011

http://www.roniweisbergross.com

When the Abused Becomes the Abuser

It doesn’t always happen. But it happens to a large enough degree that it can be referred to as commonplace. A number of studies indicate that between 30 – 70% of young abusers (physical or sexual) have been sexually abused themselves (Bentovim and Williams 1998). Statistics on adult abusers who were sexually abused as children are lower – approximately 10 – 22%. However, I suspect that a much larger percentage of adults who have been sexually abused as children have developed coping and/or relational styles that are abusive – if not to others, then certainly to themselves. It doesn’t sound shocking to say that someone who was abused as a child may become self destructive as an adult.  But how far off is that from abusing others? The point here is that children who were abused are taught to abuse as a way of communicating and connecting.  And many times their primary role models, their parents or other family members, are the ones who taught them this.

Why would anyone repeat behavior that has hurt him or her so profoundly? Almost no one consciously sets out to become abusive. The behavior is handed down over the generations because it is learned behavior. The behavior feels familiar and it feels like home. It is instinctive; furthermore, the abuser may not know any other way to behave. Adults who have been abused as children by their loved ones mix up love and abuse. It is both a natural (for them) way to communicate and a release of anxiety – the anxiety surrounding the original abuse.  It is a way to turn the tables and finally have a sense of power or control in their intimate relationships. Many times, they are able to cover up their behavior from the outside world and only exhibit abusive tendencies with those closest to them. That’s either the way it was with their original abuser or it is a way to carry on the secret that they have lived with their entire life.

Abused children grow up with low self-esteem. Many feel inadequate. They wonder if they deserved to be abused. Oftentimes, their abuser convinced them that they deserved the abuse at the same time that they told them they loved them. Deep down abuse survivors don’t believe that they deserve a healthy, loving relationship – if they even know what that looks like.

At the same time, they carry a lot of anger about what happened to them.  The world is not a fair place.  Their defense systems, while initially traumatized, have now become over-reactive.  They are in a constant state of “fight – or – flight”. Their automatic defense systems are driving them to attack before getting attacked.  By becoming the abuser, they can now play the powerful role in this relationship.  And maybe they even believe that by doing so they can make it right this time and thereby heal themselves.

Finally, if love is tied into abuse by early experience, then the abuse survivor might even feel more alive when they are abusing themselves or others. They may be sexually aroused by abusive behavior – especially if their young bodies responded sexually to their abusers. Physically abusive behavior and sexually abusive behavior become intertwined.

Childhood emotional abuse is also carried into adult abusive behavior. As is usually the case with this type of abuse, it is more complex, more difficult to identify and more varied in the resultant behavior. And there are less studies and statistics.  But there are some common signs of an emotional abuser:

1. Verbally abusive and demeaning behavior

2. Constantly criticizing and demanding

3. Emotionally withholding and undermining

4. Using negative labels and pathologizing other peoples’ behavior.

5. Showing little or no compassion and minimizing others feelings while            describing themselves as the victims.

6. Discounting the reality of the other or “Gaslighting” – making others feel as if they are crazy.

Childhood emotional abuse victims become adult abusers for the same reasons that those who were sexually or physically abused become adult abusers. But they have even lower self-esteem (see my article on Emotional Abuse) and may try and cover it up by verbally attacking others before they themselves are exposed as “worthless individuals”.

So how do we help someone break the cycle of abuse?

Abusers have to first become aware of what they are doing. And then they have to want to change. As anyone who has been in an abusive relationship knows, this is an extremely difficult task. Abusers are well defended in their behavior. They honestly believe that they are the victims not the villains – and at one point, as children, they were, so they are partially correct. Their sense of reality has been skewed all of their life and changing would involve psychologically reorganizing a life-long pattern of socialization. Never engage abusers, this is what they want and need. All that one can do is calmly point out the hurtful behavior that he/she is experiencing and silently walk away. If the truth is recognizable enough, the abuser may then try and understand their role in what went wrong.

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT  2011

http://www.roniweisbergross.com

Treating Abuse and Trauma

“Therapists who work with adults abused as children have one overriding goal, that is to repair the client’s self-image.  Once the client’s self image is repaired, he or she is on the road to full recovery.”

Eliana Gil – Treatment of Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse

If you think it happened, it probably did.

Many times clients are ambivalent about the therapeutic process. Why treat abuse? It’s so painful; I just have to block better. If you could block it better you wouldn’t be here in the first place. The primary reason to treat your abuse is because in addition to limiting and impairing your own life, if you don’t deal with your abuse, you may very well repeat it with your own or other children.

At the same time that we begin to treat the trauma we need to help clients understand what happened to them psychologically when they were abused.

Their boundaries were violated.

Their sense of control in the world was undermined

It was confirmed to them that they were powerless

It gave them the message that they were of little value and were meant to be used.

It created shame and guilt – they were a part of something ugly and it kept happening – maybe at some point they even allowed it or liked it.  They made a pact with abuse in order to survive.

That last point is very powerful – whether they disassociated, started to manipulate the survivor, responded inappropriately to the abuse or found some other means to get through it – they now blame themselves for their survival instincts.  The self-loathing is very intense.

If they did try to tell someone and they weren’t believed, or if they were punished for attempting to tell the truth, they were further traumatized, and it was confirmed that they were worthless and dirty. Ever since then they have felt as if there is something inherently wrong with them – this belief isolates them. They can’t allow anyone to get too close because they will discover what a worthless, evil person they are.

If you were abused – your true feelings and instincts were shut down.

You may feel that your primary worth is sexual and use it as a weapon or you may totally cut off from sex and your sexuality.

If you were also severely emotionally abused, there may be no sense of primary worth. Research shows that the lowest self-esteem is found among those who have been emotionally abused, next come the sexually abused, and the least affected are those who have been physically abused (except of course in extreme conditions). Adult survivors of sexual abuse can go on to lead successful “outer” professional lives – adult survivors of severe emotional abuse have a much harder time navigating their external, professional lives.

Trauma resolution goes hand in hand with treating the psychological problems caused by childhood abuse. Trauma resolution is a kind of repair process that parallels the process of development. In adult survivors, development has been blocked. These clients must be helped to complete the developmental process. The therapist acts in some respects as a parent, providing a corrective experience.

Recovery from trauma unfolds in three stages:

The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety.

The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The therapist must help the patient move back and forth in time, from his/her protected anchorage with you in the present to immersion in the past, so that they can simultaneously re-experience the feelings in all their intensity while holding on to the sense of safe connection (with you) that was initially destroyed during the traumatic moments of the past.

While this is going on it isn’t enough for the therapist to be neutral or non-judgmental about the abuse or their abusers – it is enormously important for the therapist to affirm a position of moral solidarity with the survivor.  You have to be the believer, the supportive parent, the witness that makes them finally feel understood and validated and not alone! The two of you construct a new interpretation of the traumatic experience that affirms the dignity and value of the survivor.  This is the re-birth, the point where we can help them pick up where they left off in the original developmental process.

The central task of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.

Per the psychologist Mary Harvey, there are seven criteria for the resolution of trauma:

1. The physiological symptoms of PTSD are brought within manageable limits – and I will come back shortly to how that is done

2. The person is able to bear the feelings associated with traumatic memories.

3. The person has enough authority over his/her memories to be able to elect both to remember and to put memory aside.

4. The memory of the traumatic event is a coherent narrative, linked with feelings. If the memories are implicit, then it is necessary to build a narrative around what they suspect happened and link that narrative with the feelings.

5. The person’s damaged self-esteem has to be restored.

6. The person’s important relationships need to be re-established.

7. The person has constructed a coherent system of meaning that encompasses the story of the trauma – simply put she/he makes sense of it and of the people involved – those involved passively as well as actively.

This brings me to the enabling parent.

Clients come in hating the abuser but a lot of times they realize that they are much angrier with the parent who let them be abused by not noticing.  Because as they come to see it – the abuser couldn’t help himself – the enabling parent knew better and should have done something about it.

How do people initially survive abuse?

1. Splitting – black and white thinking – good father and bad father or complete disassociation – there is a lot of disassociation among abuse survivors

2. Forgetting

3. Denying

4. Minimizing

How do survivors cope as adults?

1. Addiction

2. Eating disorders

3. Cutting

4 avoiding intimacy

5. Workaholism

6. Compulsively seeking or avoiding sex

7. Depression, anxiety, & Personality Disorders (Dissociative and Borderline, in particular)

8. PTSD – automatic triggers:

So how do we help bring those within manageable limits? Here is a four-step model:

STOP and become aware.

CALM yourself

AFFIRM your present reality and take time to try and figure out what set you off

CHOOSE a new response if possible. Or if another person is present – you may want to remove yourself.

At some point, partners get confused with abusers. Partners can help survivors identify triggers to automatic responses and they can figure out together what the survivor needs from the partner -i.e. To be held, to be talked to, to be encouraged to express feelings, to be allowed to stay inside your body without minimizing your feelings or yourself for feeling them

In summation, there are eight stages of recovery:

1. Deciding to do something or realizing that you can’t go on like this anymore

2. Breaking the silence – with another individual (not necessarily the abuser) or with your therapist

3. Confronting the past through therapeutic processing (oftentimes memories emerge and so this can be the most frightening stage)

4. Stopping the minimization, believing that it happened and beginning to trust yourself in the process

5. Grieving the loss and getting past the pain

6. Understanding that it wasn’t your fault – beginning to forgive yourself – starting to nurture yourself and take care of the child within.

7. Deciding whether or not you want or need to confront the abuser and doing so if it is necessary.  I personally don’t believe that you need to confront to get past it – ultimately; it’s the survivor who has to make that decision. 8. Reclaiming your life and moving forward.

“Change involves accepting our intrinsic vulnerability”

“Once we identify the ways we replicate past abuse, we can begin to reduce the mystery and power our impulses have to control us.”

Wendy Maltz – The Sexual Healing Journey

Roni Weisberg-Ross LMFT

2011

http://www.roniweisbergross.com