The Disruption of Normal Psychological Development in the Sexualy Abused Child and Adolescent

By Dr. Marianne Benkert
Richard Sipe
August 12, 2013

http://www.awrsipe.com/Lectures/SNAP/THE%20DISRUPTION%20OF%20NORMAL%20PSYCHOLOGICAL%20DEV.pdf

[THE DISRUPTION OF NORMAL PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE SEXUALY ABUSED CHILD AND ADOLESCENT]

INTRODUCTION

It gives me great pleasure to with you here tonight. I would like to thank the leadership of SNAP for inviting me to share part of this evening with you. We are all here because of this organization that has done such incredible work supporting victims and survivors of clerical sexual abuse and has helped to

keep this issue before the public eye.

What I bring to you this evening as a physician and psychiatrist is expertise and experience, a history of treating thousands of people over my long professional career, a majority of them physically and sexually abused, all of them in deep pain. Initially no one comes into my office telling me how good their life is.

Tonight I want to talk with you about the normal psychological development of children and dolescents and the disruption that occurs with abuse, especially sexual abuse. First I would like to put all of us in the role of a basic scientist for just five minutes and share with you some of the amazing neurobiological discoveries that are taking place.

Psychology, psychiatry and the neurosciences are in a state of dynamic discovery. Our understanding of human nature and human development is constantly being refined. Recent studies have shown the anatomy of the brain actually changes in response to abuse and trauma. We call this ability neuroplasticity. We can identify which part of the brain is responsible for different sensations and emotions.