Title: Victim to Survivor
-- the empowering process of assisting children in dealing with sexual abuse
Author: Kai-Ming Lee A.C.S.W.
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Text:
Two cases in rural Taipei area are discussed where a 10-year-old and a 11-year-old suffer from repeated rape by the same abuser in the village.
Outreach sessions in school are arranged over a year's time and counseling is aimed to utilize the therapeutic alliance to encourage both girls to identify and express feelings of fear, anger, despair, shame, helplessness through creative painting, body work, role playing. The empowering process also includes validation, reality-testing, focusing on "here and now", reinforcement of the inner/body strength, education of children's right.
Clients show decrease of the negative feelings as well as psycho-somatic complaints related to the abuse experience. Timely intervention plus close collaboration with the city protective workers and the school counselor play a vital part in obtaining desirable results with children protective cases.