UNITED STATES
NPR
[with audio]
June 19, 2012
Psychologists say many people who are sexually abused as kids carry the secret for decades. Many never reveal what happened at all, and few file charges. Sarah Pleydell, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and clinical psychologist David Lisak talk about the challenges of carrying those secrets.
NEAL CONAN, HOST:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I’m Neal Conan in Washington. Last week on the first day of the sex abuse trial of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, a 28-year-old man referred to as Victim Four in court papers took the stand and offered graphic detail of years of abuse.
He also expressed regret for not coming forward earlier. He told the jury he had spent, quote, so many years burying this in the back of my head forever that when he heard there were other cases like his, he felt responsible.
But his reluctance is not uncommon. Earlier this month, an article in the New York Times raised allegations of widespread sex abuse of studies at the Horace Mann School in New York City, most of it in the 1970s and ’80s. Psychologists say that many people sexually abused as children are silenced by fear and shame and never reveal what happened. Those who do can carry the secret for years or even decades.
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