Being a psychotherapist is a contradiction in itself. We have jobs we can’t talk about. We are intimately involved in many people’s lives but are compartmentalised by appointment times. There are a huge number of us in closed-off spaces, accessed only by waiting lists or the exchange of money. We are somehow there but not there in society at large.
As a psychotherapist specialising in the impact of sexual violence, this contradiction takes on particular significance. Sadly, sexual violence is everywhere, with 35% of women and girls worldwide being survivors, alongside 5% of the adult male population in the UK, for example. Such violence is a prolific societal phenomenon, yet truths about it are inconsistently voiced in support services such as psychotherapy - a reflection of the world at large. Survivors exist, but risk being an invisible population.
The scale of sexual abuse is due in part to the powerful effectiveness of myths which both minimise the issue and pathologise our responses to it. One classic example is the idea that you are most likely to be attacked at random by a stranger in the street, closely followed by the myth that such attacks should result in you actively defending yourself. If you have an image of a creepy man in a trench coat then you’re touching on the ability of myths to limit our understanding.
