Abuse can be defined as:
An intrusion into another person’s private space; be it physical, emotional or mental. And in doing so violating their primary human right to their privacy and over their body, mind and emotions.
It is all too common for victims of child abuse, sexual abuse or those living in emotionally deprived environments to not realise that they are being abused.
They are forced to ‘normalise’ their life by saying “I deserve no better as I am worthless”. Many survivors use psychological coping mechanisms such as passivity, crushing their emotions and dissociating from reality and creating a fantasy life of a better future.
These victims of abuse have developed a hardiness and resilience as they had to become independent quickly to protect themselves. As adults are often decisive, intelligent, quick-witted, amiable, sociable and many are very charismatic.
But for many these are a ‘front’ as they are suffering well hidden psychosomatic symptoms that can result in IBS, high blood pressure, insomnia, chronic pains, migraines or stress.
In a relationship they often have:
- trust issues
- sexual problems
- alcohol/food binging
Domestic violence involves:
- hitting, punching, kicking
- stabbing or use of other weapons
- restriction about the victim’s movements within or outside the house
- denigrating a partner or child about their looks, ability or personality,
- emotional blackmail
- mentally torturing their self-esteem
- not letting them contact family of friends
- forced sex
- using the abused person’s body as an object
Statistics on Domestic abuse:
- Will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime
- Leads to, on average, two women being murdered each week and 30 men per year
- Accounts for 16% of all violent crime (Source: Crime in England and Wales 04/05 report), however it is still the violent crime least likely to be reported to the police
- Has more repeat victims than any other crime (on average there will have been 35 assaults before a victim calls the police)
- Is the single most quoted reason for becoming homeless (Shelter, 2002)
- In 2010 the Forced Marriage Unit responded to 1735 reports of possible Forced Marriages.
In addition, approximately 400 people commit suicide each year who have attended hospital for domestic abuse injuries in the previous six months, 200 of these attend hospital on the day they go on to commit suicide.
Abusive relationships cross all social boundaries – ANYONE can be affected.
Anyone could be a victim, a survivor or a perpetrator of domestic abuse. It also affects friends, family, colleagues and neighbours – whole communities can be affected.
Men and women of all ages can be affected by abusive relationships; children and young people may be affected by abuse in the adult relationships around them, as well as in their own relationships. Older people can experience abuse from their carer’s.
Domestic abuse affects people of all sexuality – heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can all find themselves in abusive relationships.
Abusive relationships affect people with and without disabilities, with and without mental health issues, with and without substance misuse problems, with and without learning difficulties.
Domestic abuse affects people regardless of income; the unemployed and employed, people from all professions, wealthy people and those on a low income, the highly educated and those with little education can be in an abusive relationship.
Abusive relationships do not discriminate against religion, belief systems or ethnic backgrounds.
Provided with gratitude by the charity Living Without Abuse. The above is the copyright of LWA and not Richard Wain. Website
People who have experienced sexual abuse often have very powerful negative emotions – often against themself. Mainly as they view it as “It’s all my fault”.
They survived and grew up but the feelings and thoughts stay:
- disgust with their physical body
- guilt/shame and anger with themselves
- suicidal thoughts
- feeling powerless
- feeling of being worthless
- no self-esteem
- lack of confidence
- negative self-image
- who will fancy me now?
- relationship difficulties
- I have lost the real me
- I have to live on pills to see me through the day
- feel isolated
- rejection/ betrayal/trust issues
- got secrecy issues
- fear of doing things wrong, punishment
- fear of abandonment
I dread to think how many times I have heard “I was born with a guilty conscience”.
People who have suffered abuse, especially as a child have huge burdens of guilt.
Are these guilty feelings the same as yours?
- Do you feel overly responsible for other people?
- Are you always trying to make everybody happy, at the expense of your own happiness?
- Are you overly conscientious?
- Do you worry about everything you do because of possible negative consequence to others?
- Are you oversensitive; making you worry that things you’ve said may have caused offence?
- You are hyper-sensitive to the cues of others in how they respond to you; always looking for the negative reaction?
- Do you become a ‘wallflower’ around others; frightened of doing or saying something wrong?
- Is it critical to always be right in your choices that you become unable to make a decision.
- You ignore or squash the full array of your emotions and feel emotionally blocked or closed off.
The Flourish Programme is to be used instead of or alongside the standard conventional treatments for abuse and trauma support. I will never suggest stopping any form of treatment.
Flourish Hypnotherapy Treatment Sessions
The Flourish Programme is in 2 phases – Phase 1: Working on the immediate problems using Flourish Hypnotherapy.
Phase 2: Life Builder© to provide ongoing support until recovery is complete. (Optional – not all people need this).
What happens in a session
The Flourish Programme is an amazingly effective and empowering way to significantly improve your situation.
- You will connect to the real you – the person before the abuse happened.
- You will be able to completely change the way you think and feel about yourself, enabling you to live a happier and positive life.
- You will be able to remember the abuse occurred but not have all that negative clutter associated with it.
Most people can work through their problems in 3 hours of Flourish Hypnotherapy, some people may need a session or so of Life Builder afterwards.
Please note. I do not regress people to remember abuse and trauma events, unless someone specifically asks for it. I will use a very radid form of hypnotic regression based on Flourish principles. It does not take several weeks it is normal to complete it in 3-4 sessions over 2 weeks.