Chapter 17

Child and Adolescent Sexual Abuse

Symptoms and Patterns of Abuse

Our next issue to discuss is child and adolescent sexual abuse. This is Case Study 17 where the woman is Passive-active. See the Materials tab for the Symptoms and Treatment Text, including Case Study files. Sexual abuse is the most destructive type of abuse, because the sexual part of a relationship is the most intimate, private and the place for the most security and trust. It is reserved by God for marriage because of the foundational requirement of commitment to the well-being of another person. When sex is conducted outside of this commitment, whether it is adulterous with an adult or imposed abuse on a child, there is a deep spiritual sense of the wrongness that for most children and teens, the mind is not able to reconcile it. This leaves the victim or survivor to blame him or herself. The symptoms of this dysfunction are very similar to those that exist in physical abuse which are: the potential for violence, loud and angry discussions, manipulation, threats of I'll kill you or I'll kill your parents if you tell anybody, extreme emotion, violence towards inanimate objects, punching holes in walls, and physical abuse of others. More specific dysfunctions are playful behaviors, abuse of power, unwanted violation of boundaries and betrayal of trust.

It's common with the abuse of others, for example, a parent will abuse a child, while also be into very perverted, deviant and ritualistic sexual behavior with a spouse such as taking pictures of them and asking them to perform perverted sexual acts. Abusers may demand an extreme amount of frequency for all those types of things, unable to get satisfaction and insecure dependency. An uncle stopping by their niece’s house (parents are working) in the afternoon to be sexual with his niece or the step-father visiting a child’s room as the child is going to sleep to covertly fondle his step-child.  This behavior will never bring satisfaction, because of the spiritual nature of the abuse. They are seeking a sense of closeness, security, or control in a relationship to a person without being submissive to God's standards for that relationship. What they are seeking within their soul, can only be found in a satisfaction that God will provide. The abuser is trying to find a substitute or pseudo relationship where they can be in control, set up the standards, which will never satisfy their demanding hunger. No matter how much sexuality they're involved with, they will not gain what they are looking for, because it has no spiritual base. 

The victim of the abuse who passively endures it even though it's frequent and intense, really is only making the whole situation worse. This abuse may also have negative effects on their children with ineffective parenting and an insecure atmosphere in the home, because of the emotional extremes of one day abusive, one day nice and the next, controlling. Many times, abusers speak about being Christians or godly, and yet actively involved in abuse. Children may go to church with an abuser and see him sing hymns, pray prayers, serve on a church board or any number of churchy things. The abuser belongs to civic organizations, volunteer work for the Red Cross, involved in helping children, coaching, or helping kids at hospitals with the Cancer Society, appearing to be trustworthy. 

You will find a degree of concern with some family relatives. For example, a case where the 10-year-old girl was being abused. The mother and grandmother called me to explain how the abuser had abused a different daughter about eight years ago, but only told her about it two years ago. The mother decided not to tell anyone for the sake of the family. She was extremely ridden with guilt, because she had lots of suspicions, and if she had just spoken up, the most current abuse would have never happened. Someone who is outside looking in probably has already seen the signs or something has been discovered. For various reasons, they may not have said anything about it. The relatives can also be inappropriately involved. 

In another case, the abuser left his family, went back home to live with the parents, and then began to manipulate his own spouse indirectly through his parents. The parents of the abuser had quite a bit of money. Right after the abuse was discovered, after some time the father was now living at his parents’ house, his mother and father went over to his former/family’s house to collect every bill, all the payment books and bank records. The husband’s parents set up a payment procedure in which they put a large amount of money in her checking account each month, to pay all the bills and make all the provisions. But along with the money, were some other conditions for the abusive father, such as seeing the kids regularly, talking to her a lot on the phone, and lots of confessions of how much he loved her. All those things were negative and destructive to her. In that case, the marital and family relationship had fallen apart for about three years, and there wasn't much left at all. He still held a position in the church, but had not surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. He was controlling in the home, demanding and manipulative.  Often, patterns like this example of an abuser, one or more victims/survivors/enabler(s) all function in the cycles of abuse within the family system.

As a reminder, be sure to report past and/or present child abuse to the national or state abuse hotline, allowing the hotline operator (case worker) to determine if and when the abuse is reportable for investigation.  Keep yourself aware of your state’s abuse reporting laws and procedures as a mandated reporter. As the counselor, you must interview the child (identified victim), to ascertain the child’s perspective and clarify, validate if/what abuse has occurred. If the child is not present, help the parent and/or your client to make the hotline call. If the parent/guardian hints or refers to abusive behavior by someone towards their child, let the parent/guardian know you are a mandated reporter of abuse, their statements will be used in your hotline report. When the child has reported to you any abusive actions by another person, enlist the non-offending parent, to be involved in making the hotline report in your presence as soon as possible. Be sure to document what the child tells us and get the offender’s demographic information for the hotline report and your records. Here are the reporting guidelines. While working with the non-offending parent, be sure the child will reside away from the accused parent or offender, even if it is an older child or teenager. Once the hotline report is made, family services are responsible to oversee the child’s safety and investigation of the offender. Recommend the non-offending parent or guardian to report any further concerns and child’s report of abuse to the hotline and/or family services investigator.

Now, the biggest harms done by sexual abuse are the ones that cause the victim/survivor internal harm in their mind and heart like, “What is wrong with me?  I’m sick, or it must be my fault.” Most often, the pattern is that abuse occurs after there's been a long period of building trust, in some cases known as “grooming”. For example, the abuser has taken the child to the fair, has bought them clothes, has played sports with them, has listened to them, has done coloring books with them, has done any number of things to build trust. In some cases, it's not willful, just worked out or progressed in taking advantage of the child, but there is a willful decision to build the trust. Because when the abuse occurs, the child/teen is enjoying their relationship with him/her, though after the abuse the survivor thinks to himself or herself to be the cause of the abuse. All children/teens want to be loved unconditionally, the way God loves them; also the same way by other people, especially older people in their life.  Such as a child looking for adult attention and favor.  Even though they find love through doing things to please their parents, grandparents or teachers, their desire is to get their attention, favor and love.  When unconditional love is not present in a child/teen’s life, they can become insecure, attention seeking and easily misled.  Their insecurity can be an open door, a perpetrator’s permission to exploit, manipulate or control the child/teen into a compromising position.  Yet, when demonstrating unconditional love to the child/teen, the adult instead confesses what is wrong, and admits their own faults, rather than seeking ways to use or exploit another to get what they want.  Love protects, love trusts, love hopes, love perseveres and God’s love never fails them.

The abuser, though, takes that basic concept of love and alters it, much like Satan. Such as being nice is the setup for breaking the principles, the Biblical principles of being godly, Christ-like and loving. The grooming and setup to abuse creates a dilemma for the victim/survivor within their mental reasoning and heart, in order to make a decision to be near that person. They are torn between this deep inner need for spiritual love that's supposed to come from someone who has a relationship to God, yet has now done something spiritually wrong to them.  This confusion between knowing there is something wrong with that person's behavior, though also seeing the person doing good and honoring God in religious places causes an ambivalence in the child/teen that is not able to be resolved. 

Then when the pattern of being nice, being abused, being nice again, sets up this constant, ongoing dilemma. One example, I worked with a client who had a father who would be sexually abusive by taking pictures, touching fondling, sometimes oral sex. The next day the father would comment about how nice the person looked. This was usually done on the weekend, so was abuse on a Saturday night, and then in the morning, everyone was expected to be excited about attending church, and having a nice day. And don't you look pretty. We will get something to eat, and we'll have a nice meal. So Sunday would be this day of contrast and confusion for the child. The weekdays would be busy with work and school. On the weekend, there would be this building towards abuse, and then this pattern of denial. The survivor described in counseling, she decided the father wasn’t the problem, but her shame told her she must have done something wrong, or that it was her fault and she is not a victim. 

There can be a real strong desire, almost a worshiping effect, of the abuser, coming from a desire to please. In his family there wasn't any affection, no holding or plain cuddling. The objections to the abuse were pretty well suppressed, because of the desire to feel loved. The manipulation by the father produced a deep sense of closeness through keeping this a secret. The father also sabotaged his marriage relationship by complaining to the son about his mother being insensitive, cold, and doesn't care or understand.  This secret, special place was proof that he or she was loved, even if it felt wrong or distorted. The survivor’s belief of being sick can range from a mild twinge like this person had, to a deep-seated sense of unworthiness that says, “I'm off, absolutely awful and junky, life's horrible, and hopeless, and it never gets any better, and these jerks abused me.” 

In the Treatment Text (Materials tab), evaluate the personality type and the concepts that the person has of God's love. Practically give the child (survivor) the Analysis Questionnaire for Agape Love (AQAL); the questionnaire for children 10 years of age or younger or the questionnaire for children 10 years of age or older. Even though the questionnaire and analysis profile are not specifically geared to childhood abuse and trauma, the questionnaire developmentally matches the child’s cognitive and emotional capacity to provide their understanding of what love is and is not. When their answers are compared to the Biblical Norms in the Analysis Profile, the outcomes will reveal whether a child is internalizing blame or has developed fearful, defensive coping reactions. Evaluating the child’s view of their:

1) A Patience and B Kindness skills in facing problems, conflicts and confusion;
2) C Envy - J/K Delights in Evil/Rejoicing in the Truth in the conditional reactions in their heart, mind and behaviors;
3) L Protects - P Never Fails scores with authority figures (parents) and God will reveal their sense of being protected, level of trust, understanding of hope/belief in God, including their stamina in persevering and success or failure in their relationship.

You have a place to begin, by establishing an understanding of their conditional love baseline. Like in the abuse of a boy, convinced he was “bad” and a parental figure who convinced the boy he was trying to help him. The young boy believed the lies he was being told as a part of the interlude of being inappropriately touched. “I (parental figure) am here to help you feel better.” The abuse concluded with a punishment of his arm being burned by a cigarette by the parental figure. He believed the lie was true, it sometimes felt good, yet feeling mixed by something inside himself he was being wronged. Children do not understand how to cope with contradictory words and behaviors. So being punished was the reinforced the lie he believed, that he was bad. Creating a way to engage young boys and girls in conversation, such as using play, stuffed animals or sand tray with figurines (miniatures, figures and toys), becomes a meaningful way to act out various scenarios when discussing contradictions. Using these engagements in therapy, also provide practical reinforcements of applying concepts of God’s Agape love.

Another case, where a young female client was sexually abused by an elder of the church after she was baptized, the trauma significantly impacted her view of men and God. The secret and weekly abuse left her alone in her self-hatred at home, school and church. She used counting tiles on the ceiling and fantasy to distract herself and cope. While attempting to conceptualize an older child’s view of God in treatment, using a concrete object or figure to represent God, helps to apply any low L-P scores. Whether under 10 years old or in adolescence, a young person needs concrete means to correct distortions and reframe (shifting the narrative) who God really is and His gracious desire to love them. An indirect approach with children 10 years and under, including developmentally delay pre-adolescents is best, with specific applications and skill development of boundaries, saying “No” and telling someone, reinforced by parent(s). While direct, practical understanding for adolescents who are in early stages of dealing with their past ambivalent conflicts and traumas, may be well received. If not, step back into the indirect means to treat them. If or when ready, use specific examples of “what love is not” by abusive people and “what love is” from Jesus who understands their pain, fear and grief, that gives a contrasting perspective. Learning how to apply patience and kindness to themself and to others gives the practical tools needed to protect themself and face their fears. Use other helpful therapeutic tools (music, care for pets, journaling, art, etc.) that fits the young client’s interest and needs. Be careful using performance based activities for therapy that generally teach and reinforce being loved through performance rather than being fully human and loved.