Dealing with Past Abuse

QUESTION:

Hi Del, I’m currently dealing with a woman who was sexually abused as a child by her grandfather, who is now dead.  The trauma, however, remains with her and blocks her from getting on with her life.  This is an area I have not worked with much before.  I know that releasing the past and working with trauma is one of your specialties.  I have most of your books.  Although I adapt your scripts to individual clients, I still find them exceedingly helpful in giving me clues as to how to work with certain issues.  Are there scripts you have written from your experience with client abuse of various kinds that might help me with this client and others like her? And should I try to help her “forgive” her grandfather?

                First, in terms of your last question, I am attaching to this e-mail an article I wrote a few years ago on “forgiveness”.  It lays out my own perspective on this, so please read it from that understanding.  You may not agree with it, but within the article you will find a process or two that I have used in such cases.  Full scripts of these are located on my web site’s store as individual downloadable scripts. I think the ones I list below are probably in the books you now have. “Dialoguing with the Perpetrator”, which I mention below, is the closest in expressing my attitude about forgiveness.  Remember that “forgiveness” is about your client, not about her perpetrator.  So, from that perspective, any of these scripts are means of forgiveness.  

                Here are some of my scripts that can be very helpful; they all attempt to release the client: 

                1. The most important one for this kind of client, I feel, is the “problem-solving-solution-finding” script in which the mind is to locate the imprints causing the problem and change them into something more helpful to the client, at this point of their life.  

                2.  “Freeing the Adult Child” can be used with any age person.  This process assumes that the act of the abuse is stuck in time during the age of the child when it happened. From the viewpoint of that child-self, the abuse is still "alive", as is her grandfather.  Literally, she DOES NOT KNOW that time has passed, and still thinks the abuse is going on. This script is designed to help that “age” come forward into the present time. At that point, the child becomes the therapist’s client for a few moments.  I have found this to be a great releasing technique, whether the trauma is with a child or an adult (such as in a case of adult rape).

                3.  “Dialoguing with the Perpetrator” allows a safe way for the person to confront their abuser.

                4.  “Bringing Healing to the Past #1 and #2”

                5.  “Reframing the Past”

                6.  The story of the Boy, Ogre and Wizard, in which he is encouraged to dump his burdens.

                       A final note, if you feel that her grandfather still has a hold over her, I would recommend you get rid of his energy/spirit that tries to keep controlling her.  Look for the “Light Rituals”.

                I’ll be interested in how you handle this so, if you have time, let me know how things go. And feel free to contact me again if you run into difficulty.