If you have experienced sexual abuse, you may have arrived at this page after a long time of carrying something largely alone. That’s worth acknowledging before anything else. Many survivors of sexual abuse live with their experience for years, sometimes decades, before finding a space where it feels possible to speak about it. Whatever has brought you here, and however long it has been, you are in the right place.

What Sexual Abuse Includes

Sexual abuse is any sexual activity that is unwanted or non-consensual. This includes:

• Rape and sexual assault
• Being touched sexually without permission
• Coercion or pressure into sexual activity, including within relationships
• Sexual exploitation, including by those in positions of trust or authority
• Childhood sexual abuse, including abuse by family members, caregivers, or others known to the child
• Image-based abuse, including intimate images shared without consent
• Exposure to explicit material without consent

Sexual abuse can happen at any age, to people of any gender, and within families, relationships, and institutions as well as outside them. It is never the fault of the person it happened to, regardless of the circumstances.

The Effects of Sexual Abuse

The consequences of sexual abuse reach further than the experience itself and tend to be shaped by when it happened, who was involved, and whether it was disclosed and believed at the time.

Childhood sexual abuse, particularly when perpetrated by someone known and trusted, can have profound effects on development, on the capacity to trust others, on the relationship with the body, and on how safe intimacy feels in adulthood. It often produces significant shame, a sense of being damaged or different, and a difficulty believing that others would respond with care rather than judgement if they knew.

Adult sexual abuse and assault can produce acute trauma responses including flashbacks, hypervigilance, dissociation, and significant anxiety. It can also affect relationships, sexual intimacy, and the sense of safety in the world in ways that persist long after the event.

Common experiences include:

• Shame and self-blame, often disproportionate to any rational assessment of responsibility
• Difficulty trusting others, particularly in close or intimate relationships
• Dissociation, feeling detached from the body or from experience, particularly in situations that carry an association with the abuse
• Flashbacks, intrusive memories, or nightmares
• Anxiety, depression, or a persistent low-level sense that something is wrong
• Difficulty with physical or emotional intimacy
• A sense of having lost something fundamental about yourself
• Feeling unable to speak about what happened, or fear of not being believed

These responses are understandable. They reflect a nervous system and a self that have been significantly affected by something that should not have happened. They are not signs of weakness, and they are not permanent.

Disclosing and Beginning Therapy

Coming to therapy for the first time, or naming sexual abuse for the first time with a therapist, is significant. You don’t need to have your experience clearly defined, fully understood, or even fully remembered to begin. You don’t need to disclose everything at once, or at all until you’re ready. The work moves at your pace.

If you have never spoken about your experience before, that’s common and it’s fine. If you have tried therapy previously and found it difficult or unhelpful, that’s worth naming at the outset so we can think together about what might work differently.

How I Work With Survivors of Sexual Abuse

My work with survivors of sexual abuse is rooted in relational psychodynamic therapy, informed by trauma theory and an understanding of how shame, dissociation, and relational disruption develop in the aftermath of abuse. I work with both childhood and adult sexual abuse, with recent experiences and with experiences that happened many years ago.

The pace of the work is determined by what your nervous system can tolerate. We don’t push toward disclosure or detailed narrative before sufficient safety has been established. The therapeutic relationship itself is central to the process, because abuse that happened inside relationships tends to need a safe relational experience to begin to heal.

Alongside the abuse itself, therapy can address the shame, the relational patterns, the effects on intimacy, and the impact on your sense of self that sexual abuse so often leaves behind.

If You Need Support Now

If you are in crisis or need immediate support, the following services are available:

• Rape Crisis England and Wales: 0808 500 2222 (available 24 hours)
• The Survivors Trust: 08088 010 818, thesurvivorstrust.org
• Galop (for LGBTQ+ survivors): 0800 999 5428
• Samaritans: 116 123 (available 24 hours)

Further Reading

• Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books.
• Bass, E., & Davis, L. (1994). The Courage to Heal. Harper Perennial.
• Survivors Trust (thesurvivorstrust.org), for information on specialist support services across the UK.