BishopAccountability.org
	Studying Violence, Abuse, and Trauma By Dr. Jaime Romo Healing and Spirituality March 8, 2010 http://www.jaimeromo.com/blog/ I spent time with brilliant researchers and policy makers who seek to understand and prevent abuse at the National Partnership to End Inter-personal Violence Summit in Dallas. While the conference had little to do with religious authority sexual abuse explicitly, I attended several presentations that I linked to religious authority sexual abuse and how we might respond to it. I heard: Women who report to police or medical professionals 72-96 hours after being raped are often re-traumatized by the professionals who are there to help them. We are one of the few industrialized countries that doesn’t have a national model/ plan to prevent abuse and end inter-personal violence. Poverty is violence. There are strong socio- cultural patterns of bias against believing survivors of sexual violence. There is a strong correlation between sexual violence and a victim’s subsequent negative physical, mental, and social well being. In the past 14 years, there has been an acceptance of focus on sexual abusers as biologically driven, which has sparked a segregation/ removal of individuals from society approach, which has overlooked the various contexts in which the abuse occurred. What was encouraging to me or what sounded like helpful common links: When people who experience sexual abuse have a way to make meaning of their abuse, their healing process is supported. This ‘making meaning’ might be confronting and holding the perpetrator accountable through the legal system, or doing something symbolic to express their voice and differentiate their identities from the abuse. When support groups are part of a survivors’ experience, their narrative construction and reconstruction seem to help individuals manage severe violence. When supporting survivors, it is effective to help stabilize a person’s health/ physical symptoms, before expecting therapeutic or other goal setting methods of transforming a person’s self esteem and efficacy. Victim centered response vs. legal centered response minimizes PTSD, which is also correlated to the community related negative responses to the person reporting sexual abuse. As a result of three days of presentations and conversations, I came away with some conclusions about general and inter-personal violence in secular settings. Nonetheless, these statements also speak to religious institutions, which have purported to be a safe haven from the evils of atheistic organizations. In short: Sexual abuse is systemic, and a social epidemic. A misperception of the problem (blaming or ignoring victims) shapes the response to victim and underlying healing. No one single intervention or strategy will work. Therefore, we can’t design studies or approaches to sexual violence that work for only some groups. We need more integrated prevention, treatment, and research efforts. Successful responses are culturally competent and victim centered responses and show benefits to subsequent prosecution of abusers. Study after study that ask how the investigation or intake process could have been better yield the answer from victims, “If they had just operated from the principle that I was telling the truth.” One presentation by Dr. David Kennedy, from the Center for Crime Prevention and Control, at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice was particularly intriguing. He talked about the many failed programs to reduce gang violence that are in place and then discussed an effective effort.He said that one program focused on group and group dynamics, not individuals. In other words, 5% of the young men in highest risk groups are the ‘dangerous’ people and perpetuate almost all of the most violent crimes in major cities. He cited strategic intervention: direct, sustained engagement with street groups, community, services, law enforcement, respected local figures and parents. He talked about a careful promise to gang leaders that created a reversal of pro-violence peer pressure. In short, the coalition gave gang leaders an honorable exit by saying that if one person from your group kills, you’ll be arrested and put in jail for a long time. Gang leaders received a clear moral voice of the community. Parents; ministers, mothers, and activists said to gang leaders, “We need you, you’re better than this.” They said, ‘It has to stop. End of story. It hurts. We don’t want to live like this anymore. Your community and loved ones need it to stop. You are hugely important and valuable. The ideas that you are living by (street code) are wrong. We will help you if you let us. We will stop you if you make us.” It took a clear, direct, community stand and the violence stopped. He showed phenomenal statistics about those who go to meetings or interventions don’t re-offend. Those who don’t go to meeting, go to prison. Of course, I thought of people like Cardinal Law who was given a promotion to the Vatican after his tenure in Boston supervising ordained sexual predators. Afterwards, I asked Dr. Kennedy if he saw a possible parallel intervention with church leaders with respect to religious authority sexual abuse. He said, “Absolutely.” Who thinks it’s OK for little kids to get shot? No one. Who thinks it’s OK for little kids to get sexually abused by a religious authority? Where’s the collective voice to say, “It has to stop. End of story. It hurts. You’re better than this. We don’t want to live like this anymore.”? When will religious folks say with conviction to religious leaders, ‘the ideas that you are living by are wrong. We will help you if you let us. We will stop you if you make us.’? Dr. Romo is the author of “Healing the Sexually Abused Heart: A Workbook for Survivors, Thrivers, and Supporters.” To see excerpts, visit http://www.jaimeromo.com/workbook
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.