Question

[Antigonos]

[quote name='EmilyAnn' timestamp='1340192045' post='2446649']


Be careful talking about "recovered memories". Psychologically speaking, it's very dangerous and scientifically unsound. It's bad psychology and bad clinical practice. Therapists who encourage it should have their accreditation revoked. Too many people have had their lives and families destroyed by false "recovered memories".
[/quote]

I think what was meant was that the victim of assault needs to have worked through the trauma, come to terms with it, and has closure. The last thing any community needs is to have a member suffering from PTSD. IIRC, Didn't Starets make reference to having occasional attacks that contributed to his transfer to another community?

[EmilyAnn]

[quote name='Antigonos' timestamp='1340206093' post='2446709']
I think what was meant was that the victim of assault needs to have worked through the trauma, come to terms with it, and has closure. The last thing any community needs is to have a member suffering from PTSD. IIRC, Didn't Starets make reference to having occasional attacks that contributed to his transfer to another community?
[/quote]

If that is what was meant then I completely agree. The wording used however indicated otherwise and I stand by what I said, it is dangerous and foolish to throw terms like that around.

[To Jesus Through Mary]

From my experience of discerning (but with more traditional and well known, active communities) this can present a problem. Some orders will not accept someone that comes from a history of abuse or experienced a severe trauma. Not due to the virginity issue, but due to the issues of trust it creates and thus inhibits the vow of obedience.

[beatitude]

People react to traumatic experiences like sexual assault in different ways. They don't necessarily create any problems with trust, and if they do, those problems are not irresolvable.

I think that there is now something of a 'therapy culture' that has been built up around rape, not helped by Hollywood and popular fiction, which has the brave victim undergoing mental horrors and slowly piecing together her experiences with the aid of a god-like therapist in order to bring the perpetrator to justice. Or spending years of her life torn and broken, until a gifted rescuer comes along offering hope. There are dramatic flashbacks, there are broken relationships, there is heartbreak - all the ingredients for a sob story with a dramatic ending.

I say this as both someone who has experienced sexual assault and a mental health practitioner. Trauma-related mental health problems often don't look at all how society expects them to look, and they are treatable. What frustrates me is the way in which people who have been assaulted often feel obliged to start playing the part of the 'stereotypical victim' - they're told that they should have repressed memories, so they struggle valiantly to recall them; they're told that they should have trust difficulties, so they start looking warily at their friends; they're told that they need years and years of therapy, so they dutifully go. But this is not necessarily true. I once met a Holocaust survivor who had been in Auschwitz, and who emerged quite unscathed mentally - but he was basically press-ganged into counselling that he didn't need by well-meaning friends who assumed that he [i]must[/i] be traumatised by what he'd lived through. Fair enough, a lot of Holocaust survivors were. But he wasn't.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. FCC, your friend needs to be sensible and gentle with herself and self-aware - but then so do all discerners. She may have some additional difficulties in religious life because of her past experiences, but then again she might not. No community should be making judgments at the outset about how she is likely to react. The important thing is that she is honest with herself about what her problems are and how best to meet them.

Edited June 20, 2012 by beatitude

[Strictlyinkblot]

Agreed. While counselling and therapy are useful tools, they're just that, tools. Each of us is unique and unique in how we respond to situations, both good and bad.

[OnlySunshine]

[quote name='To Jesus Through Mary' timestamp='1340217768' post='2446768']
From my experience of discerning (but with more traditional and well known, active communities) this can present a problem. Some orders will not accept someone that comes from a history of abuse or experienced a severe trauma. Not due to the virginity issue, but due to the issues of trust it creates and thus inhibits the vow of obedience.
[/quote]

Not to change the topic at hand, but I am so happy to see you still hanging around here. I was wondering where you were.

[To Jesus Through Mary]

[quote name='MaterMisericordiae' timestamp='1340304564' post='2447144']
Not to change the topic at hand, but I am so happy to see you still hanging around here. I was wondering where you were.
[/quote]

I was in the convent for about 9 months (SSVM) left 5/16. But I am glad to 'see' you as well

Edited June 21, 2012 by To Jesus Through Mary