How children tell: Containing the secret of child sexual abuse

ISBN-13: 9783659707261 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 308 str.

McElvaney Rosaleen

Opis

This book describes a study of how children tell about their experiences of sexual abuse, drawing on interviews with children, adolescents, parents and adults who have themselves been sexually abused in childhood. The author, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, who has over 20 years experience working with children, families and adults in Ireland, describes the painful and joyful journey of reaching out to share the secret and what this experience is like for those who have been sexually abused. She highlights the need for both sharing the secret and containing the secret and identifies three key dynamics that describe this process: firstly, the active process of not telling others and the complex reasons for this; secondly the building up of a pressure cooker effect where both intrapersonal and interpersonal factors lead to a need to tell; and finally, how the secret is confided rather than told and the need for ongoing containment as the individual shares the secret in different relationships across the lifespan.

O autorze

Rosaleen McElvaney is a Clinical Psychologist and Lecturer in Psychotherapy in Dublin City University. She has published widely on the topic of child sexual abuse and in particular, on how children confide such experiences in others. She is past president of the Psychological Society of Ireland.