Rise: Healing From Childhood Sexual Abuse

This episode explores some of the emotional and cognitive changes that may occur once the perpetrator passes away.

Today's episode is all about trauma drives - the experience of feeling ultra-driven to be productive in order to avoid triggers related to past trauma.

Today's episode is all about the experience of shame - why feeling shame is common with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, why feeling shame is NOT justified, and what you can do if you can't seem to shake feeling shame.

Today I describe the fawn response. Fawning is a stress response that is learned as a child that helps us stay safe. Fawning is when we try to please and appease an abusive authority figure in order to try to prevent harm from coming to us. Reference: Walker, Pete (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Lafayette: Azure Coyote.

Today's episode explores the link between childhood sexual abuse and chronic pain in adulthood. References: - Afara N, Ahumada SM, Wright LJ, et al. Psychological trauma and functional somatic syndromes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychosom Med. 2014;76(1):2-11. Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. Mate, Gabor. (2011). When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-disease Connection. Hoboken, N.J., J. Wiley. Van Der Kolk, Bessel. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

In this episode I discuss dissociation. Dissociation is a symptom that occurs frequently with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, which involves feeling numb, feeling like you're in a dream, and losing chunks of time without realizing it until afterwards.

I describe what flashbacks are, and offer some techniques you can try when experiencing flashbacks.

In this episode I provide information on Cognitive Processing Therapy and Internal Family Sytems Therapy. I also reference a few other trauma treatments (Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Sensorimotor Therapy, Natural Processing). References: Resick, P. A., Monson, C.M., & Chard, K.M. (2017). Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD: A Comprehensive Manual. The Guildford Press. Schwartz, R., & Sweezy, M. (2021). Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd Ed). New York, NY: Guildford Press.

In this episode I describe what is EMDR (an evidence-based treatment for PTSD), how it works, and what to expect as you go through the therapy. References: Shapiro, F. (2017). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols and procedures (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Guildford Press.

This episode is all about exposure therapy! Exposure is one of the most effective techniques that help a person learn to overcome the symptoms they experience from childhood sexual abuse. I describe how exposure works, as well as provide details on the therapy called Prolonged Exposure, which is the gold standard treatment for PTSD. I'm very honoured to have been featured on Feedspot's top 35 podcasts on Childhood Sexual Abuse! Check out: the list at https://blog.feedspot.com/child_sexual_abuse_podcasts/

In this episode I give an overview of how adverse experiences impact survivors emotionally, cognitively and behaviourally, and provide information on how psychotherapy treats these symptoms.

This episode describes the history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), including the historical prevalence of CSA, the response of the public to disclosures of CSA, and the historical reaction of professionals to evidence indicating that CSA occurs frequently. This episode honours the people who worked hard to have CSA be taken seriously by both professionals and the public, and who influenced treatments to become available for survivors of CSA. Resources and References: Bender, L., & Blau, A. (1937). The reaction of children to sexual relations with adults. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 7(4), 500–518. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1937.tb05293.x Clancy, Susan A. (2009). The Trauma Myth: The Truth about Sexual Abuse of Children - And it's Aftermath. Basic Books/Hachette Book Group. Herman, Judith. (1981). Father-Daughter Incest. Harvard University Press. Herman, Judith. (1992). Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books. Smart, C (2000). Reconsidering the recent history of child sexual abuse, 1910-1960. Journal of Social Policy. Wells, Mary. (1989). Canada’s Law on Child Sexual Abuse: A Handbook. Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data. https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/child-abuse-history

This episode goes into detail about the aftereffects of childhood sexual abuse, including psychological symptoms and the behaviours that can arise when struggling with various forms of mental illness. *Trigger warning* - suicide and self-harm are mentioned in this episode. Resources and references: Liebschutz et al. (2002). The relationship between sexual and physical abuse and substance abuse consequences. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4861063/ Slavin et al. (2020). Child sexual abuse and compulsive behavior: A systematic literature review. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7787260/ Smolak & Murnen (2002). A meta-analytic examination of the relationship between child sexual abuse and eating disorders. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/eat.10008 DBT-Linehan Board of Certification - https://dbt-lbc.org/ Inner Solutions - www.innersolutions.ca Information on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) - https://www.albertafamilywellness.org/what-we-know/aces/ The Trauma Myth by Susan A. Clancy

In this episode I describe the impact that the abuse had on my mental health, as well as some of the steps I took to begin overcoming the impact of the abuse.

This episode shares details about the abuse I experienced, the impact it had on my mental health, and well as my story of how I overcome the abuse.

In this episode I will define what childhood sexual abuse is, as well as discuss the statistics on childhood sexual abuse. Resources and references: Statistics Canada - https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510016701 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00008-eng.htm Martin & Silverstone (2013). How much child sexual abuse is "below the surface" and can we help adults identify it early? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3711274/ Little Warriors Prevent It! Workbook. https://littlewarriors.ca/ Rape Abuse and Incest National Network - https://www.rainn.org/articles/child-sexual-abuse