“The case of Carmen, a 21-year-old college student, illustrates how a premature
family disclosure compromised safety:
Carmen caused an uproar in her family by accusing her father, a wealthy and prominent businessman, of sexually abusing her. Her parents threatened to take her out of school and commit her to a psychiatric facility. She initially sought treatment in order to prove she was not crazy and to avoid being literally imprisoned by her father. On evaluation, she was found to have many symptoms of a complex post-traumatic syndrome. However, she was not acutely suicidal, homicidal, or unable to care for herself, so there were no grounds for involuntary hospitalization.
The therapist initially made clear that he believed Carmen’s story. However, he also advised Carmen to consider the realities of power in her situation and to avoid a battle that she was not in a position to win. A compromise was reached: Carmen retracted her accusation and agreed to enter outpatient psychiatric treatment, with a therapist of her choice. As soon as she recanted, her parents calmed down and agreed to allow her to continue school. Her father also agreed to pay for her treatment.
In therapy, Carmen recovered more memories and became more certain that incest had in fact occurred; however, she felt obliged to keep silent out of fear that her father would cut off payments for therapy or school. She was accustomed to her family’s affluent life-style and felt incapable of supporting herself; thus, she felt entirely at her father’s mercy. Finally she realized that she was at an impasse: she could not progress any further with her treatment as long as her father retained financial control of her life. Therefore, after completing her junior year, she arranged a leave of absence from college, obtained a job and an apartment, and negotiated a reduced fee for therapy, based on her own income. This arrangement allowed her to progress in her recovery.
In this case, creating a safe environment required the patient to make major changes in her life. It entailed
difficult choices and sacrifices. This patient discovered, as many others have done, that she could not recover until she took charge of the material circumstances of her life. Without freedom, there can be no safety and no recovery, but freedom is often achieved at great cost. In order to gain their freedom, survivors may have to give up almost everything else. Battered women may lose their homes, their friends, and their livelihood. Survivors of childhood abuse may lose their families. Political refugees may lose their homes and their homeland. Rarely are the dimensions of this sacrifice fully recognized.”
―
Judith Lewis Herman,
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
