week 15 Crisis intervention

Sexual assault therapy to a child is providing counseling to children who have been sexually abused. The counseling is done by a professional counselor who provides guidelines that will help the victim to overcome the trauma. A violent sexual act to both children and adults is a criminal offense, and perpetrators pay heavily for the crime. A person doing counseling for children to use the following steps.

The counselor starts by creating a harmonious relationship with the victim, which builds confidence in the counselor’s victims. It may take two to three sessions to build this connection. At this stage, a counselor should be able to understand and share the feelings of the victim. Empathy will bring the victim closer to the counselor, and the victim will open up quickly to the counselor. Once the client accepts the counselor, the counselor can move into the next approach. (Tolliday, Spangaro, & Laing, 2018)

In most cases, sexually assaulted persons lose self-confidence; they lose trust in people around them and feels worthless. At this stage, the counselor should develop a strategy to help the victim gain self-esteem and learn to love themselves. The counselor should help the victim to bring into perspective positive things about the victim. At this stage, the victim should make to accept herself and know that all is not lost. It is also essential to know which activities the victim enjoys doing and incorporate them during therapy. These activities help reduce stress on the victim (Elliott, 1994).

Recognition of irrational thoughts is identified in the third step. Recognition of irrational thoughts will be achieved by giving assignments that will help the victim her thoughts and feelings. Once the exaggerated ideas are identified, the counselor starts working on the negative reviews to bring positive thoughts. Where a victim believes that her family dislikes her, the counselor will work toward convincing her otherwise.

The fourth step invites the client to take personal responsibility in healing. The victim is help on how to take care of their emotions. The victim can now know how her body reacts when anxiety strikes and so forth. At this point, the counselor should develop strategies that will keep the victim-focused on all her five senses. This focus will help the client identify things that are important to her and those that are not.

The fifth step gives results of the healing of the patient; it can be detected by inviting the patient to write her story about the trauma and read it aloud. At this point, the counselor can study the patient's reactions and can establish ( Itzin, 2000)

References

Elliott, M. (1994). Female sexual abuse of children. Guilford Press.

Itzin, C. (2000). Home truths about child sexual abuse: A reader. Psychology Press.

Sexual assault against children. (2008). PsycEXTRA Dataset. doi:10.1037/e619282012-001

Tolliday, D., Spangaro, J., & Laing, L. (2018). Children who have experienced parental sexual assault. Therapy with Harming Fathers, Victimized Children and their Mothers after Parental Child Sexual Assault, 72-88. doi:10.4324/9781315268439-5