Listening to the Untold Stories

Stories via Greenbookblog

As a therapist, I listen to the untold story. I am the midwife to a narrative that needs to be constructed, told or infused with compassion and new meaning. The loss of the ability to make meaning is crippling. Therapy not only touches the lives of our clients but also transforms the experience of the therapist. It is a cliché to say our clients are our teachers, although it is a truth. How a therapist lives life has everything to do with the capacities of a therapist. I have had the opportunity to train and mentor many therapists. I want to say “live life more fully and your work will follow.’ So therapy changes lives and life changes us. My writing is about moments that have changed my life and lives I have had the privilege to touch. It is also about the spaces in-between where meanings emerge.

Image Via KPLU

Traumas are often wordless. I learned that words were a gift. If you were allowed to name it, describe it, teach it, you could master it or at least tame it. When it remains wordless, the horror and shame takes over and limits people lives and potential.

Image Via Woodbridge

The walls of the counseling room are constraining, although filled with people’s truths and confidences. The moments are profound, yet secretive and private. The lessons, I believe, need to be shared integrated back into community. Words give voice. Abuse silences. My willingness to companion my clients as they face the sometimes-unimaginable horrors changed me. So my work is about moving from wordlessness to words and making meaning out of the traumatic and the ordinary.


- Laurie Kahn, MA, MFA, LCPC


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Response to “Military Sex Assault Claims Rise After Pentagon Launches Campaign Urging Victims to Report”

(See the original article Judith is responding to here)

Although frightening, this headline is really good news, given the military’s long and shameful history of reporting and prosecuting sexual violence. This article speaks to the new initiatives created and how they are making a more open, less shaming culture for victims of sexual violence to report to their ranking officers. This has also created a dramatic increase of the amount of sexual violence reported in the military culture. 

The tragedy is that the abuse and violence has been happening all along. But now, soldiers feel more permission to report the sexual abuse. 

"There is still a misperception that this is a women's issue and women's crime," said Nate Galbreath, the senior executive adviser for the Pentagon's sexual assault prevention office. "It's disheartening that we have such a differential between the genders and how they are choosing to report." 

This article also highlights the efforts of the military to connect to and encourage men in the military to report when they are victimized. In 2012, around 14,000 men and 12,000 women reported that they were sexually abused. The study’s report emphasized their belief that low numbers of men are reporting their sexual abuse. The seeming disparity in the actual numbers reported is due to the overwhelming ratio of men to women in the military. 

They believe that the numbers are much higher for the male soldiers. One theory around their unwillingness to report is largely due to military culture. There is a commonly held belief that “it will make people think they are weak and will trigger questions of their sexual orientation. In most cases sexual orientation has nothing to do with the assault and it is an issue of power and abuse,” said Nate Galbreath. 

Rape and sexual violence is about power and control not about gender, sexuality or physical power. It is a very hopeful and positive shift in the US military that they are strong voices speaking out. The hope is now more victims will be able to be heard and get justice though the military court.

-Written by Judith Ierulli, MSW, LCSW


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Teen Therapy Groups

Despite greater public awareness of gender inequality, studies on teen girls have repeatedly shown that girls lose self-esteem and self-confidence between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.  Girls lose themselves as they try to become what the dominant culture defines.  Girls are neurologically and physiologically built to “tend and befriend,” to grow and thrive by harnessing the emotional and social benefits of close relationships.

Research has been repeatedly shown that girls’ developmental strivings for autonomy are coupled with a strong desire to maintain important relationships, and further the emotional intimacy within these relationships.

At Womencare, our teen therapy groups are designed not only to meet the ordinary challenges young women face, but also the traumatic challenges they must work to overcome.  Within these groups, the growth of each girl’s autonomous self, which strives for competency and individuality, can be encouraged and celebrated.  Within our groups, the growth of each girl’s relational self, which desires connection and collaboration with others, can be developed and nurtured.  When provided with a safe place to give voice to goals, dreams, feelings and desires that may be in sync with or run  counter to the dominant culture, girls are afforded the opportunity to find and honor their true selves. 

   

We invite you to visit our website, www.womencarecounseling.com, to check out our two teen therapy groups, A.R.T. Adolescent Girls Reclaiming Themselves and Stronger Together, which are specifically created to meet the needs of young women as they grow through their adolescent years.

-Beth Holzhauer, LCSW and Nicole Howell, MSW, LCSW