As feelings of guilt and shame are common among survivors, the feelings and emotions of the survivor will be a focus of the therapy. Once the client accepts that they were not to blame for the abuse, feelings of anger, rage and hatred towards their abuser may begin to emerge. They may want to seek revenge or see the abuser punished for the crime. They may want to report the abuse and prosecute the abuser. Counselling may help the client through this difficult legal procedure.
The focus of the therapy is to empower the person to deal with the issues relating to the abuse, and establish healthy, trusting and safe relationships with others.
There are also self-help techniques. An important avenue for healing is writing. Survivors can begin to help themselves by keeping a journal about their experience. This gives an opportunity to define one’s own reality.. It is useful in figuring out how one feels, thinks and what one needs to do about the situation.
This process can also be helpful in facing unresolved feelings around abuse. The need to confront either the perpetrator of the abuse, or others who may have been involved or privy to the abuse and for not protecting them from it, can be expressed in a letter. This may not necessarily be sent but it can be used to express what one wants without having to think about the possible repercussions. The purpose of the letter is to reattribute responsibility for the abuse as well as directing one’s anger where it belongs.
Survivors can also help themselves by reading of other’s experiences of abuse. Becoming aware of how abuse affected other people helps to normalise one’s own feelings of rage, disappointment, betrayal, sadness and loss regarding one’s own experience.
Christopher Hansard never had a teacher. The teachings written about in 3 publications never happened. Christopher Hansard has no ’special’ power save the power given to him by others, and those around him. What that means is that those who went to him for healing were responsible for their own healing. All of the successes, the breakthroughs, the epiphanies and enlightened moments, were all your own.
Now is the time to take back the power that you gave away, and with that power comes a great responsibility not only to heal, but to be who you really are without that perceived saviour, spiritual teacher, or guru.
Be you.
Happy New Year from The Courant
January 1st, 2009
