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I Never Told Anyone This Before

Managing the Initial Disclosure of Sexual Abuse Re-Collections

• By Janice A. Gasker

• Price: $59.95
• Binding: Hardback (also available in Paperback)
• Pages: 186
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 7th January 1999
• ISBN: 978-0-7890-0461-1

About the Book

“I Never Told Anyone This Before” is the first book that will enable you to work in an ethical, effective manner, based on empirically tested guidelines, with clients who disclose memories of sexual abuse You'll find that these guidelines result in the creation of a helping environment conducive to the sharing of traumatic re-collections. At the same time, this environment is structured to keep you free from legal risk amidst the “false memory” debate era.

With “I Never Told Anyone This Before”, you will overcome your specific concerns for working with special populations, such as persons who aren’t sure they’ve been abused, persons who are nonverbal, men, and persons who have suffered head injuries. This book also provides you with a language for discussing sexual abuse memories in a manner that focuses on the clients’ experiences. You will explore practice techniques that are based on theoretical foundations, as well as real helping situations with examples from actual therapy sessions. Other specific areas you will learn about in “I Never Told Anyone This Before” include:

• how to facilitate and manage first-time disclosure of abuse stories
• therapeutic use of memories of sexual abuse
• the function of memory in identity formation
• facilitation of disclosures of traumatic history
• avoiding legal risks for therapists in view of the false memory debate
• memory as it is treated by psychodynamic, cognitive, and developmental theorists
• caveats for researching the disclosure of sexual abuse re-collections

Faced with the prospect of working with a possible survivor of childhood sexual abuse, you may be unsure about the therapeutic approach to take. Current controversy highlights the possibility that persons may be harmed rather than helped in the therapeutic process. “I Never Told Anyone This Before” provides you with a combination of theory, research, and practice that will put your anexities at ease.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments

• Introduction
• A Psychotherapist's Dilemma
• Theoretical Issues
• Chapter 1. Moving Beyond the Debate: Theoretical Perspectives
• Psychoanalytic Drive Theory
• Cognitive Psychological Theory
• Folkloristic Studies
• Sociology of Knowledge
• First-Time Telling
• Chapter 2. Revisionist Vocabulary
• Child Sexual Abuse
• Re-Collections
• Life Narrative
• “Self”
• Dis-Integrated Re-Collection
• Epiphany Experience
• Integration
• Disclosure Issues
• Chapter 3. From Disclosure to Integration: Processing Re-Collections of Sexual Abuse
• A Theory of Re-Collection
• Chapter 4. First-Time Stories: The Structure of Therapy
• First-Time Disclosure in the Group Setting
• Chapter 5. First-Time Stories: The Interactional Context
• Interactional Strategies
• Structural Context
• The First-Time Stories
• Triangulation Interviews
• Clinical Techniques
• Chapter 6. Therapeutic Implications
• Traumatic Stories As Life Narratives
• Therapist Nonaction
• Controlling the Process
• Chapter 7. Therapeutic Techniques
• Setting the Stage
• Making Choices, Taking Responsibility
• Summary: The Components of Successful Therapy
• Chapter 8. Special Considerations for Special Populations
• General Guidelines for Work with Special Populations
• Specific Needs of Special Population Groups
• Conclusion
• Chapter 9. Troubleshooting
• Unique Client Populations
• The Role of Family
• Work in the Context of the Treatment Team
• Editing the Traumatic Story
• Appendix: Research Methods
• Research Questions
• Method
• Participants and Setting
• Data Collection
• References
• Index