The Stages of Healing

It is important that people who support survivors understand the healing process. Healing is never straightforward progress. It might best be described as a spiral. A survivor on her healing journey climbs upward, but she re-traces her steps at various points along the way. If you, a supporter, understand this, you will be better able to support the survivor you know.

There are a number of ways to describe the healing process, many are both valid and help us to understand the healing process. The medicine wheel, used by many Aboriginal cultures in North America, is one way to describe the healing and balance that we all strive for. Another description, often used by survivors and by community-based organizations, is by Bass and Davis.

Ellen Bass and Laura Davis have described the stages of healing a survivor goes through. Most of these stages are necessary. However, a few of them--the emergency stage, remembering the abuse, confronting your family, and forgiveness--are not applicable for every woman or man healing from abuse.

While these descriptions are directed to a survivor--female or male--this information is vital for any supporter, be they partner, family member, friend, therapist or other professional helper. The more we understand about abuse, its effects and the healing, the better we are able to support the survivors in our lives and to heal ourselves.

Here is how Bass and Davis describe the steps in the healing journey.

The decision to heal
Once you recognize the effects of sexual abuse in your life, you need to make an active commitment to heal. Deep healing happens only when you choose it and are willing to change yourself.

The emergency stage
Beginning to deal with memories and suppressed feelings can throw your life into utter turmoil. Remember, this is only a stage. It won't last forever.

Remembering
Many survivors suppress all memories of what happened to them as children. Those who do not forget the actual incidents often forget how it felt at the time. Remembering is the process of getting back both memory and feeling.

Believing it happened
Survivors often doubt their own perceptions. Coming to believe that the abuse really happened, and that it really hurt you, is a vital part of the healing process.

Breaking silence
Most adult survivors kept the abuse a secret in childhood. Telling another person about what happened to you is a powerful healing force that can help you get rid of the shame of being a victim.

Understanding that it wasn't your fault
Children usually believe that abuse is their fault. Adult survivors must place the blame where it belongs--directly on the shoulders of the abusers.

Making contact with the child within
Many survivors have lost touch with their own vulnerability. Getting in touch with the child within can help you feel compassion for yourself, more anger at your abuser, and greater intimacy with others.

Trusting yourself
The best guide for healing is your own inner voice. Learning to trust your own perceptions, feelings, and intuitions becomes a basis for action in the world outside.

Grieving and mourning
As children being abused and later, as adults struggling to survive, most survivors haven't felt their losses. Grieving lets you honour your pain, let go, and move into the present.

Anger--the backbone of healing
Anger is a powerful and liberating force. Whether you need to get in touch with it or have always had plenty to spare, directing your rage squarely at your abuser, and at those who did not protect even if they could have done so, is essential to healing.

Disclosures and confrontations
Directly confronting your abuser is not for every survivor, but it can be a dramatic, cleansing tool.

Forgiveness
Forgiveness of the abuser is not an essential part of the healing process, although it tends to be the one most recommended. The only essential forgiveness is for yourself.

Spirituality
Having a sense of a power greater than yourself helps you in your healing process. Your spirituality is unique to you. You might find it through traditional cultural practices, through organized religion, meditation, nature or a support network.

Resolution and moving on
As you move through these stages again and again, you will reach a point of integration. Your feelings and perspectives will stabilize. You will come to terms with your abuser and other family members. While you won't erase your history, you will make deep and lasting changes in your life. Having gained awareness, compassion, and power through healing, you will have the opportunity to work toward a better world.

***From The Courage To Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.***