NCJ Number
194928
Journal
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Dated: 2001 Pages: 51-71
Date Published
2001
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article describes and promotes contextual therapy as an intervention for helping survivors of child sexual abuse to develop adaptive capacities that, rather than having been disrupted by trauma, may have never been attained.
Abstract
Viewing survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA) in the family and social contexts in which they grew up and within which their abuse occurred helps to guide treatment in a direction substantially different from that dictated by a primarily trauma-centered conceptualization. Such a contextual perspective recognizes that CSA survivors' abusive experiences are not the sole defining moments of their lives, nor are they the exclusive cause of the problems that have led them to seek psychotherapy. Instead, many of their difficulties can be the result of having grown up in an interpersonal environment that failed to transmit to them capacities for attachment, adjustment, and productive management of distress; these capacities are necessary for the effective management of the challenges of daily adult living in a complex and stressful society. Consequently, contextually informed treatment consists largely of providing the conditions that allow the development of these capacities, thereby enabling clients to discover first hand that they have the ability to live in a way that is considerably different and substantially more fulfilling than they previously imagined possible. 1 figure and 78 references