Therapy for Sexual Assault Survivors
April is Sexual Assault Awareness month, and Atlanta Innovative Counseling Center recognizes the importance of sex abuse awareness month and championing survivors and those who need help while in abusive situations.
Our first blog post in this series on sexual assault explains sexual violence and discusses how you can receive Sexual Assault Help from AICC. This post, the second in our series, explains two common sex abuse therapies: EDMR and brainspotting.
Please be aware that counseling is only one step toward recovery from sexual assault. If you are in crisis NOW, please call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline. You can call or chat online with a trained staff member who can give you direct support.
What is Sexual Assault Therapy?
Once you are no longer in immediate crisis, a trained therapist, such as those at AICC, can help you work through the trauma that you have experienced at the hands of an abuser.
RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, explains that in sex abuse therapy, “you may learn new coping skills, ways to deal with your feelings, and strategies for managing stress. You can also explore thoughts that you might not say out loud to a friend or family member.”
This last part is especially important, as feelings of shame and guilt can often overwhelm victims of sexual assault making it difficult to talk about what has happened--even with trusted friends and family.
The role of the therapist is to be an objective, non-judgmental listener who can aid the victim in learning key coping strategies to overcome trauma.
Sexual assault therapy is a safe space for victims to talk about what has happened; to lessen the burden of the assault by speaking about it; and to recover emotionally from the trauma of sexual violence.
Should I Pursue Therapy for Sexual Violence?
If you find yourself wondering, “should I go to therapy,” the answer is that NO problem is too big or too small for therapy, especially when it comes to sexual violence.
You can also consider whether the trauma of sexual violence is interferring with your daily life. The American Psychological Association (APA) has an excellent list of signs you might need to consider therapy, as well.
These signs include:
a prolonged sense of helplessness and/or sadness;
excessive worry;
difficulty carrying out daily activities;
and more.
If you feel that trauma is interferring with your daily life, and if you feel that you might want to pursue therapy, these are good signs that a trained sex abuse therapist can help you work through, and even overcome, trauma.
There are multiple therapies for victims of sexual violence, and this post will highlight two that our own practice uses, EMDR and brainspotting.
EMDR for Trauma
EMDR stands for “Eye Movement Desensitization and Rapid and Reprocessing.” While this might sound overwhelming, this therapy can be safely and simply practiced with a trained EMDR therapist in the comfort of a therapist’s office.
So what is EMDR? The definition of EMDR, as provided by the American Psychological Association (APA), is: “a structured therapy that encourages the patient to briefly focus on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories.”
EMDR was developed in 1987 for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is an individual therapy that is delivered one-two times per week for a total of 6-12 sessions, although some people benefit from fewer sessions (APA).
Trained therapists can use EMDR to benefit victims of sexual violence in order to reduce the “vividness and emotion” associated with violent memories. Practitioners can use EMDR to help the client “process the images, emotions, feelings, and thoughts” associated with a traumatic event or series of events (Shapiro).
EMDR is an integrative psychotherapy that is highly effective and empirically supported (Shapiro).
Atlanta Innovative Counseling Center’s own Ali Dixon and Anjel Francisco are practitioners of EMDR and can work with you to help you understand what EMDR can do for you.
Brainspotting Therapy
According to developer and trainer David Grand, Ph.D., “brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing, and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation, and a variety of other challenging symptoms.”
Brainspotting (BSP) is a relatively new type of therapy, developed by Dr. David Grand, during an EMDR session. It is designed to help victims overcome trauma by processing negative emotions and pain--including psychologically induced physical pain.
EMDR is the older of these two therapies and has been more extensively studied. The difference between the two is that both focus on helping the victim overcome trauma, while Brainspotting has been shown to also help alleviate psychologically induced physical pain that can accompany trauma.
Dr. Christi Bartolomucci and Dr. Jenny Van Overbeke Brooks both practice brainspotting at Atlanta Innovative Counseling center. They are committed to using brainspotting, along with other behavioral techniques, to help survivors forge a new, hopeful path forward.
Your Journey as a Survivor
With the help of therapies like EMDR and Brainspotting, you can heal from trauma.
Working with a licensed therapist who is skilled in these therapies is the first step toward walking away from sexual violence with hope for the future.
If you are interested in pursuing therapy for sexual violence, or know someone who has experienced sexual violence and is in need of therapy, please consider contacting us. We would be honored to help you in your journey as a survivor.