Sexual trauma is any type of unwanted sexual activity where your consent is ignored, violated, or unable to be given. Fear, force, threats, and manipulation are used in various ways physically, mentally, and emotionally to exert power and control over you.
Many types of sexual trauma exist, as well as extensive vocabulary describing it. The following falls under the umbrella of sexual trauma:
- Rape
- Stranger rape
- Gang rape
- Partner rape
- Intimate partner sexual violence
- Date rape
- Acquaintance rape
- Prisoner rape
- Attempted rape
- Sexual assault
- Sexual abuse
- Childhood sexual abuse
- Sexual abuse of elders
- Sexual abuse of people with disabilities
- Military sexual trauma
- Incest
- Molestation
- Fondling
- Groping
- Unwanted sexual touching
- Coercion
- Pressuring
- Sex trafficking
- Sexual harassment in the workplace
- Being observed, videotaped, or photographed sexually or nude without your knowledge
- Having visual or audio media of sexual activity or nudity shared without your knowledge
- Being involuntarily subjected to voyeurism or exhibitionism
- And more
The effects of sexual trauma can reach far across your life and run deep within you. No matter what type of sexual trauma you experienced, if it was recent or from long ago, if it was a one-time incident or a recurrent experience, or if it was with a stranger or someone you knew, therapy can help. Therapy can help you progress through the stages of healing from sexual trauma, and move from an attitudinal place of victim to survivor to thriver. In healing from sexual trauma we may focus on the following during your sessions:
- Victim-blaming
- Reducing minimizing and denying
- Believing it happened
- Breaking your silence
- Telling your story
- Education on the phases and aspects of healing from sexual trauma
- Education on the biological impacts of sexual trauma, especially on the emotional brain
- Develop a working understanding as to why the sexual trauma happened
- Identify and learn to manage triggers from the sexual trauma. Triggers are reminders of the sexual trauma in the here and now that can hijack you and the moment you’re in. When triggered there’s great potential of projecting the trauma onto the present.
- Explore the impacts of the trauma
- Grounding techniques for when the sexual trauma becomes re-activated in the here and now.
- Intrusive memories or flashbacks
- Process feelings such as shame, humiliation, embarrassment, anger, disgust, horror, betrayal, and feeling degraded, dirty, unworthy, or less than.
- Increasing embodiment. Building tolerance to being fully present in your body, especially with the sensations of distressing emotions.
- Pendulation
- Boundary setting
- Assertiveness
- Depression & anxiety
- Addictions
- Effective coping
- Body memories
- Dissociation
- Self-esteem
- Forgiveness
- Decision-making around confronting or not confronting the perpetrator
- Decision-making and issues around disclosing and not disclosing the sexual trauma to others
- Trust and safety
- Impacts on intimacy and connection
- Impacts on relationships
- Impacts on your sexuality and sex life
- And more