Treatment Developed to Help Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Adults who have survived sexual abuse as children frequently feel that they themselves share some part of the blame for their abuse. The greater the share of the blame the patient takes on, the more likely they are to continue to suffer from depression, anxiety, and other negative psychological symptoms.

A new therapy developed by Michael Murtagh, a Professor of Psychology at Frostburg State University, Maryland, attempts to help sexual abuse survivors to shift blame from themselves to their abusers in order to aid emotional healing.

The treatment, called the Appropriate Attribution Technique, begins by educating survivors about sexual abuse. First, the therapist addresses common myths about abuse that have a tendency to keep people from placing blame on the offender. These myths include the ideas that sexual offenders are “created” by being sexually abused themselves, that substance abuse causes sexual abuse, or that victims who experience sexual response during abuse must have wanted to be abused. Even though the myths have been disproved by psychologists and sociologists, many people still believe them. Debunking them is an important part of helping survivors prepare to understand why abuse does happen.

The second stage of education involves sharing information with the patient about what psychologists do know about sexual offenders, beginning with the four preconditions to sexual offending that have been identified and accepted by many psychologists. Patients are educated to understand that in order to commit abuse, offenders must first be motivated–that is, they must want to commit abuse through sexual acts. Next, they must overcome their internal inhibitions, which may be done through activities like substance abuse, rationalization, or extensive exposure to pornography. Third, abusers must overcome their fears of punishment, and finally they must seek or find the opportunity to commit the abuse.

Helping patients understand the steps abusers follow before committing abuse and the cycles of offense that chronic abusers go through prepares sexual abuse survivors for the final stage of appropriate attribution therapy, when the information gained through education about sex offenders is applied to the survivor’s own case in order to undertake the powerful emotional work of fully placing the responsibility for their abuse on the abuser.