Possibility of Abuse

Question

Next week I start a series of appointments with an 11 year old. This girl’s father has been accused of sexual molestation of a different child. The mother, divorced for many years, is concerned that her daughter may have been molested as well. My job is part detective and part healer. I know you have a wealth of experience. Please share a few suggestions

Answer

I wish I could be more helpful. I rarely work with current abuse issues, only past ones in adult’s lives, mostly because, if current and unknown to the legal system, I would have to report the situation to the authorities of this state, and thus break any confidentiality. Immediately, Child Services would take the case out of my hands; thus I would no longer be helpful.

But since you have the appointments, let me suggest the minimal. First of all, you need to make sure the mother isn’t trying to get at the father with false accusations, and that the information on his previous molestation accusation isn’t just her concept of that information.

Secondly, you’ll need to take plenty of time with the girl getting enough information to clue you in as to the daughter’s state of mind. Is this something her mother has “fed” to her out of her own worries? You may have to deal with false memories because of the possibility that the mother’s concern has created something false in her imagination.

You may want to ask the girl about her favorite times with her father, and her least favorite times; this may give you a few clues as to their relationship. Saying that, probably taking her back, under hypnosis, to various times she has spent with her father, starting with the best times, and then going for the least favorite times might be a way to build a more truthful “picture” than mother is able to furnish. I wish I could assure you that the truth will come out; probably it will only if the child feels totally safe to tell you, and that may take time.

The only time I worked with someone on a more “current” abuse issue was with a teenager who (along with mother) wanted to know whether her stepfather had actually abused her. Using regression, going over a situation more than once, it turned out that she had heard her parents having sex in their bedroom when she was on the couch in the living room. She fell asleep and her stepfather came out, and seeing that she was asleep, put a blanket over her. She mistakenly created a relationship between those two incidences. I confirmed this by taking her back two more times to her various times with her stepfather.

I would not be able to tell you, however, whether that session satisfied her mother, since I think she would have like to have had something ”on him” in facing a divorce.

Good luck; let me know how it goes. You’re charting new territory, but I’m convinced you will intuit what to do just fine, from what I know about you thus far.