The dislocation between the literature on the recovery process from sexual abuse and my clinical experience led me to develop three research questions about the recovery process from childhood sexual abuse: these concern the experience of sexual abuse itself, the process of recovery from the experience of sexual abuse and the difference in recovery process between the participants who received counselling and those participants who did not. I invited ten female survivors of sexual abuse, who received counselling and three female survivors who did not to participant in this study. Each participant had four to eight hours in-depth interview and the data had been analysed according to the principles of grounded theory. I analysed the available literature of recovery process and compared this with the findings in this study. Finally, I developed an account of the process of recovery from sexual abuse according to the findings of this study and comparison with the available literature review. There are three main findings in this study: 1. There were four reasons the participants used to explain why the abuse happened. Firstly, they perceived their family dynamics as a cause of abuse. Secondly, the abusers might use the offensive behaviour to satisfy their emotional needs. Thirdly, the abusers felt curious about sex but the family did not have adequate sex education to satisfy the curiosity. Finally, the abuse was not a physically painful experience for some of the participants so they did not disclose or run away from it. 2. Five systems interact with each other in the process of recovery: (1) The positive and vulnerable parts of the self. (2) Four areas (surviving, issue of self, issue of external world, and integration) of the recovery process. (3) Five outcomes (issue of self, emotions, cognition, sexuality and relations) of the recovery process. (4) Three areas (issues of self, emotions and relations) of unresolved issues. (5) Nine elements (the abuse, family situations, childhood, nature, adulthood, relations, counselling, society's of sexuality, and religions) affecting the above systems. 3. There are different perceptions about the experience of abuse between Group A, who received counselling, and Group B, who did not.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:341420 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Hung, Su-Chen |
| Publisher | Durham University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1204/ |
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