2. The Case
• The case is of a girl named Danielle that faced sexual abuse in
childhood but still struggles with the lingering effects of their
formative experiences deep into adult hood.
• Danielle was seven years old the first time she was sexually abused
and the girl who had once been an outgoing, happy, and trusting kid
suddenly became withdrawn.
• As the abuse continued, new changes began to arise as well. She
began to experience concentration problems and memory difficulties.
Even as she entered high school and the abuse stopped, her academic
performance suffered and she struggled to integrate new learning
despite her natural intelligence. More distressing, however, were her
anxiety, depression, aggression, and increasingly out of control
behaviors. But they were assumed to be the normal experiences of an
overemotional teenage girl
3. • By the time she was 23 it had become obvious to her that it wasn’t
about being a hormonal teenager and she needed help. she says.
“But I thought help meant that I would get some antidepressants and
be sent on my way. Instead, help meant retracing the trajectory of
these emotional disturbances. And it all went back to the abuse.”
4. The Cure
• The Cure was divided into three parts
1)The Thoughts And Emotions
2) Empowerment
3) Jumping back into life
5. The Thoughts And Emotions
(Session1-20)
• Talking about her traumatic experiences wasn’t easy; for years,
Danielle had coped by denying there was anything to cope with. In
the safety of her therapist’s office, however, she began to not only
speak about what had happened to her, but understand how her
current emotions and behaviors were born from a place of trauma
that had left deep neurological impressions. The first 20 sessions
were just focused around her expressing painful memories, including
retrieval of forgotten or dissociated memories.
• This was done to let out all the negativity within her and make her
ready for the next stage.
6. Empowerment (session 20-40)
• In phase Danielle’s psychiatrist told her to find things that made her
feel in control and powerful.
• Danielle overcame this challenge by standing in front of a crowd. She
joined a public speaking and cut her hair short.
• The psychiatrist also told her to remind herself 50 times a day if
necessary that not all people will take advantage of her.
• During this phase compassion for oneself increased, replacing the
previous old feelings of horror, fear or disgust. Also, good positive
memories emerged. For example she said “My teacher in the grade 3
was smiling at me…she said in front of everybody in the class that I
am a bright student and she expects me to become a scholar, which I
have become…I was so proud…I never told it to my mother…wonder
how I forgot about it…because it was so meaningful.”
7. Jumping back into life (session 40-60)
• During the third phase Danielle reported a dramatic reduction of
emotional (depression, anxiety, distress, dissociation) symptoms, as well as
a great increase in energy, in the ability to enjoy life, and in creativity, in the
sense of coming up with new ideas of what she would like to achieve and
do.
• She reported a change in her feelings toward the perpetrator and about
her trauma, as well as a better ability to establish intimate relationships
with people. Regarding the perpetrator and the relationship with him,
feelings of fear and hate were replaced with indifference. Danielle stated in
her last session “I am not afraid anymore, it's like my past is left behind, it
remains a past, it does not haunt me…I have a present and a future…the
past and the people who hurt me have no hold on me anymore…so strange
to feel so free.”
