How Therapy Can Help Victims of Crime
Therapists aim to help people get through and grow through difficulties. One of the benefits of therapy is learning about why you react to difficult events in a way you may not happy or are confused about. Here is an example:
ML had been working in a stressful work environment and she had trouble with a male counterpart. She told her therapist she thought she needed to learn how to manage this conflict. Through the course of this therapy, ML was able to identify the way in which her colleague’s behavior resembled that of her father’s. In a safe environment, ML was able to share about her father’s abuse throughout her childhood and her pre-teen years. ML had thought she dealt with her father’s abuse because she had talked about the abuse with some close friends. “Plus” she said, “the abuse didn’t stop me from getting a good education and achieving at work.” In therapy, she learned how early life traumatic experiences shaped the way she related to this colleague. She practiced skills to better manage their relationship.
As ML continued her therapeutic work, she gained other insights. Among these were that she was not responsible for the abuse. She also learned about the power of her own resilience. This meant that she had and could continue to turn that painful experience into strength for post-traumatic growth. As she completed therapy, ML was able to recognize that because of that inner strength, she had acquired certain skills. For example, when she reached her pre-teen years, she developed ways to stand up to her father’s abuse. ML stated she could see how those skills were beneficial in her career where she negotiated contracts for a national labor union. She could also see that she did not need to react to her co-worker out of a place of fear; that her only choices were not to run or to lash out. She was able to face the difficulty with her colleague from a place of mutual respect and with confidence.
Self-discovery can be one of the greatest gifts we give ourselves, no matter what brought us to therapy in the first place.