"The psychologist has to get rid of many prejudices".

We spoke with Sara Valens, psychologist expert in childhood sexual abuse.

Sexual violence against children is one of the most harmful phenomena, not only at the psychosexual level, but also at the social level.We must not forget that this phenomenon is often facilitated by family dynamics and even by prejudices and stereotypes that, even today, make this topic a taboo that "is better not to talk about".

That is why even in the field of psychology there are myths about child sexual abuse that refuse to disappear. Precisely for this reason the work of the person we interviewed today, psychologist Sara Valens, is important.

What do we know about sexual abuse in childhood?

Sara Valens talks to us about one of her areas of expertise: the phenomenon of sexual violence against children and the family dynamics that are often behind it.

Why did you become interested in training in the field of childhood sexual abuse?

For several reasons. I myself am a survivor of abuse and had to suffer personally the lack of training of my colleagues in sexual abuse. On the other hand, I wanted to fill that gap and give victims the attention they needed.

I had come from working with battered women and studying abuse was the logical step. I had seen how maltreatment is a re-victimization of the abuse suffered in childhood in many cases, and I deduced that by treating abuse we could tackle the problem of violence in adulthood. This idea is at the basis of all my work.

What is the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and the phenomenon of trauma?

Sexual abuse is very traumatic and leaves serious sequelae in the lives of the victims. We recognize the same aftereffects in survivors of abuse as in people who have suffered other kinds of traumatic events, except for some particularities that go with the abuse.

I know some psychologists will tell you that sometimes abuse leaves no trauma, but I think that view is wrong. In a way, these psychologists fall into the same trap as the victims themselves by minimizing the abuse, which is a tendency that is very typical of many of them.

If we take into account that many psychologists who work with abuse have themselves been victims, we will understand this perfectly well. It is true that sometimes victims pretend to be fine, but this is because they are trapped in the early stages of interpersonal trauma, that is, in the stage of dependence on the pedophile, and they do not yet recognize the seriousness of what has happened to them. And they may be adults now, but that doesn't change anything.

The victim may have had Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, which Ronald Summit explained to us, and they may have been stuck in that up to the present moment, even if they're forty years old. That may look from the outside like a normal person, but if you scratch the surface a little bit and allow that victim to express themselves freely, you end up seeing clear symptoms of trauma.

The problem is that most psychologists are not trained in trauma and don't know how to see it. A patient of yours may be traumatized, but if you don't know what that is, it will seem to you that many of his behaviors are just personality traits, quirks or maybe a disorder classified in the DSM, but that you don't know that it is linked to trauma because you have not been taught it. Many of the DSM or ICD classifications are simply trauma, and often for childhood sexual abuse.

How can childhood sexual abuse be reflected in adulthood?

In addition to a number of psychological and physical sequelae, we find that from the moment a person is a victim of interpersonal trauma, he or she is left in a vulnerable situation that can lead to being a victim of many other things if the trauma is not treated.

This is the phenomenon of revictimization, which causes people to be re-victimized in contexts other than the original one. As I commented earlier, we find that a large proportion of battered women in adulthood have been victims of childhood sexual abuse. But we also find that these victims are more likely to suffer further abuse by others, and rape in the street or other settings.

In general, trauma caused as early in life as most abuse occurs, and repeatedly, leaves a completely dissociated brain that only brings problems.

One of the major disturbances this causes, which is transversal to everything else, is that these people never get to have a moderately ordered life; you can't get your life in order when your brain is so dissociated. A consequence of this is also the structural dissociation of the personality, which leads us to develop dissociated parts, which are both cause and consequence of this chaos. It is really difficult to try to lead a normal life when you have so much noise in your head.

Sometimes dissociation also leads to psychogenic amnesia, i.e. to total or partial "forgetting" of the experience. The serious thing about this is that the fact of dissociating the experience does not make the after-effects disappear. The trauma will run its course and we will see the same number of disorders and illnesses as in victims who remember everything. People like this go stumbling through life, with great suffering and an emotional void that they are unable to restore on their own. Fortunately there are more and more psychologists trained in trauma and neuroprocessing therapies, which are the ones that really make a difference.

What are some of the most common psychological sequelae that occur from childhood sexual abuse?

There are many sequelae that go with the abuse. One of the most common would be sexual disorders, including promiscuity. Let's say that sexual abuse is a kind of mental programming for the victims. We are conditioned by our early sexual experiences.

If you were abused before your brain was fully formed, you will end up being a kind of "sex machine", and you will be activated and respond to any stimulus of that nature, no matter how small, whoever it comes from. Incredible but true, sometimes this happens even against the victim's own will. Hence I speak of it as "programming".

Linking with the previous answer, in today's age, many psychologists would not find it strange to meet a promiscuous person, and would understand it only as a way of living sexuality, when in fact it is a conditioning. Likewise, we can find the opposite extreme in which people do not want to have sexual relations with anyone, because they feel aversion to sex. In the same person we can see both at different times in their life.

Then we have a whole host of disorders and diseases linked to trauma and abuse. Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, without going any further. But we find problems in all areas of life; social phobia or problems relating to other people; in women, tendency to have relationships with pedophiles or abusers; depression and anxiety, with a high incidence of Borderline Personality Disorder; autism spectrum disorders to some degree; psychosis or schizophrenia; speech or writing disorders; self-injurious behaviors, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts; addictions of all kinds; tendency to fall into prostitution or pornography, and all the problems derived from dissociation that we have seen here and more.

What are the most commonly used psychotherapy techniques to help children who have gone through this type of abuse?

Nowadays, the techniques that we know work best and that are becoming more and more widespread are the neuroreprocessing techniques, that is, those that help to integrate trauma. Personally I would never recommend other types of techniques, since here we are not talking about working with the mind, but about working with the physical brain, which in this case is dissociated. When you look at a dissociated brain through the brain scanner what you see is that it is turned off, that those areas that should be activated when performing certain tasks do not respond, that the neurons do not connect in a natural way and, therefore, the brain functions are greatly affected.

It is not surprising that the dissociated person sometimes seems "groggy" or that they are unable to memorize normally. All these are the effects of a dissociated brain and this cannot be cured with behavioral guidelines, mindfulness or psychoanalysis. If we want to generate changes in the physical brain we have to work with techniques that affect the way neurons connect with each other, and there is only one type of therapy capable of doing this: neuroreprocessors.

What aspects of child sexual abuse do you think are most important in the field of psychotherapy training?

First and foremost the trauma they generate. If you are not trained in trauma, no matter how much you know about trauma techniques, it is not going to do you much good. On the other hand, the psychologist who wants to deal with survivors of abuse will have to know in detail the behavior of pedophile families.

In society we have a stereotype in favor of parents and against children. According to this stereotype parents are always good and do everything for the good of their children; if there are problems in a family it must be because of the children, never the parents.

These schemes are already obsolete for most families, but in particular when working with victims of intrafamilial sexual abuse they are useless. These families are not normal and therefore the parameters that we use to work with other types of families do not work for these groups. The psychologist has to know all this, because if you don't, you will not be able to understand the reactions of the victim's environment and you will not be able to attend her as necessary.

There are psychologists who simply do not believe the things that victims tell them because they cannot conceive that there are mothers who can slap their children when they tell them that they are being abused by their father. This ignorance regarding the characteristics of the violence suffered by children in their own home ends up becoming a prejudice against the victims. The psychologists' own difficulties in understanding that there may be fathers who rape their children and mothers who cover up for rapists can wreak havoc in the heads of the victims.

Knowing the processes of revictimization is also very important and can prevent the psychologist from doing more harm to the victim. Some psychologists believe you when you tell them that your father raped you, but when you try to explain that in addition to that, it also happened to you at school, or that your father was followed by your brother, then all the psychologist's defenses are raised. This revictimization is not only true, it is one of the most common things among victims, and the mental health professional has to know it in order to act accordingly.

Something that personally calls my attention is the determination of many to try to convince the victim that her parents loved her in spite of having subjected her to the grave mistreatment of abuse and its cover-up.

The victim is already confused from a childhood of sexual violence. Female victims grow up linking their parents' abusive behavior with love. They are women who will later enter into violent relationships with men with the same profile as their fathers because they are convinced that this is love. The psychologist cannot come to reinforce this idea. First, because it is not true; fathers who love their daughters do not rape them and mothers who love their sons do not cover up for their rapists. But also because we condemn the victims to a life of future violence and revictimization.

For all these reasons, the psychologist has to get rid of many prejudices, many preconceived ideas and many distorted and obsolete ways of seeing the profession. In general, there is a need for professionals with authority and firmness capable of guiding these victims towards maturity with logical arguments, and not reinforcing the survivors' role as victims.

Opening the victims' eyes to what has really happened in their homes means tackling the problem in time before it escalates. Abuse is passed from generation to generation through the victims, usually the mothers, so it is important to cut the cycle of sexual violence in childhood so that there are no more victims. Psychologists have a great responsibility in this regard. One cannot take care of an infantilized person -as the victims of abuse remain-, being oneself equally infantile, or harboring ideas and prejudices that anchor us in the past and allow us to progress.