How To Help A Teenage Sexual Assault Survivor? A Forensic and Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

Whether you’re an aspiring psychologist, psychology student or loved one of a teenager, this podcast episode will be immensely useful to you. Since my audience is mainly psychology students and aspiring and qualified psychologists, I want to mention that depending on the mental health service you work in, there is a chance you’ll encounter a survivor of sexual violence. As well as I’ve already mentioned on the podcast before unfortunately how common sexual assault is for men and women. Yet unfortunately teenagers can be subjected to sexual assault too, and this presents us with an issue because some of the advice about how to help adult survivors doesn’t work for teenagers. As well as because teenagers are still children and as parents or friends or loved ones, we want to protect them at all costs, we aren’t always sure how to help them. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn a range of tips on how to help a teenage sexual assault survivor. If you enjoy learning about mental health, victim support and the healing after sexual assault then this will be a useful, insightful and great episode for you.

Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Breaking The Silence: A Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology Guide To Sexual Violence, Rape and Sexual Assault. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Note: nothing on this podcast is ever any sort of official medical, legal, relationship any other type of advice.

Introduction To The Heartbreaking Event of Teenage Sexual Assault

It’s heartbreaking enough to know that sexual assault exists in the world and I flat out hate that sexual assault happens in the first place. Yet it is even more heartbreaking to know that 44% of sexual assault survivors are under the age of 18, so when we discover that our teenage child, loved one or friend has been sexually assaulted then this is heartbreaking. Your teenager will be in pain, they will be suffering and they will be going through hell and back as they try to process what the hell happened to them and why.

Moreover, because 44% of sexual assault survivors are so young, we need to rethink the traditional advice we give people, so we can make sure it’s applicable to the young men and women that experience this awful traumatic event. As well as whilst the research and voices this episode is based on are mainly women-focused, this should apply to all teenage survivors regardless of their gender identity. That’s why I’ll be using gender-neutral language in this episode.

When it comes to yourself, you will be angry that some idiot did this to your teenager, you will be scared about the future and you will be scared or terrified for your teenager. As well as you will probably be powerless to help them and it is that sense of powerlessness that I want to talk about in this episode.

You might experience grief too.

When you feel powerless, please know you are never alone and neither is your teenager. There are rape crisis centres, there are support groups and there are other parents and allies that have been or are where you are right now so you can walk hand-in-hand with them through the healing and recovery process. Also, you can learn from them too because you are all there to support each other.

In addition, there are plenty of ways how you can support your teenager compassionately and that’s the focus for the rest of this episode.

Also, all the references for today’s episode are at the bottom of the blog post like always.

Encourage Your Teenager To Express Themselves

Sexual assault survivors are three times more likely to develop depression compared to non-survivors, and psychologist Dana C. Jack refers to depression as a condition that silences a person. This basically means that depression stops the survivor from experiencing, expressing and feeling all the emotions they have as they process the distressing life event. Therefore, one option to help a teenage sexual assault survivor is to find a mental health professional who uses expressive art therapy in their work. Since expressive arts can be very useful for teenagers because it helps them connect with as well as process the truth about the traumatic experience.

Personally, even though I’m not a teenager, I think that’s why I’ve thrown myself into my fiction and nonfiction writing. It’s why I’m writing a personal book and then a psychology-focused book based on sexual violence so I can process, reflect and express what I feel about this horrific situation. Yet you might be able to try painting, modelling, clay stuff and a wide range of other creative art forms in a therapeutic setting.

Visit the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN) Website

Even though this is a website for the United States, this is still a brilliant website wherever you are in the world. For the past 17 weeks, I’ve been reading a fair amount of different articles, websites and a single academic paper to help me process what on earth happened and the RAINN website is one I have kept coming back to. They have some good statistics and facts that I like, and it’s very useful for finding the location of any local rape crisis centres near you and learning more about sexual assault. As well as your teenager might find their Online Hotline useful, which is an instant messaging section where your teenager will be able to connect with a trained advocate who can answer any questions that they have.

In addition, after your teenager has connected with their local crisis centre, you can research recovery groups and ask for referrals. Ultimately, this is about knowing that your teenager is never alone and when they hear the stories of other sexual assault survivors, they can heal and reduce their shame and self-blame.

As an adult, I know contacting a support service has been immediately healing, beneficial and it has given me hope for the future. I’m still on the waiting list for rape counselling but making the referral was still one of the best decisions I’ve ever made because in all the dark moments, all the dark times when I am suffering so much and I want it all to end, I know I just need to wait a little longer and I’ll be able to get help as I come off the waiting list.

There is hope for a good life after sexual assault.

Help Your Teenager Explore Contemplative Practices

In case you’re like me and it took you a little longer than it should to remember what a contemplative practice was, it is a practice that quiets the mind so you can cultivate a personal capacity for insight and deep concentration. This can include tai chi, prayer, yoga as well as meditation. Also, these practices can be very helpful in healing any dissociation experienced by your teenager or your client because disassociation is where a trauma survivor disconnects from their experience and sometimes their own body in an effort to survive.

In addition, I really shouldn’t need to say this but just in case, I do want to mention it. If your teenager has been sexually abused by a religious figure. Do not push religion as a source of healing or power or light in this dark time. If your teenager is religious then please, give them the space to find their own spiritual or religious path as they process what happened to them. And if they reject religion forever after their sexual assault then that’s okay.

Talk About Healthy Relationships with Your Teenager

A terribly unfortunate research finding is surviving a teenage sexual assault is one of the greatest predictors of them experiencing some type of relationship violence in the future. Therefore, it’s important to talk with your teenager about the difference between a healthy, respectful relationship and an abusive one, and this is something you should model in your own life. This allows your teenager to actually see it and understand it in the real world.

Whilst as an adult, me and my best friend haven’t had too many discussions about this topic, I remember one extremely helpful conversation that we had about consent. Since my best friend took the virginity of their ex-boyfriend and they were using it as an example of how informative consent works. In essence, actual consent isn’t a simple “yes” or “no” at the beginning of sex, it is asking frequently throughout sex if is it okay if they do X then y then z and so on to you and not doing it until you enthusiastically consent to it. And it is that need for enthusiasm that is important because you can say “yes” out of fear, out of concern for your safety and out of terror that the person doing things to you will hurt you badly. Thus, if you give consent with enthusiasm then that means you actually want it and that is the whole point of consent.

That’s a relatively cruel explanation of this conversation but it proves the importance of having these honest, open conversations.

Honour Your Teenager’s Boundaries

Something I cannot stress enough because I understand I am not a teenager but my family did this to me and it really distressed me in secret. But please, ask permission before hugging and touching the teenage survivor, because if you don’t and if you just touch or hug them without permission. It can bring up a lot of distressing memories, a lot of pain and a lot of terror because this is likely exactly what the person did who attacked the teenager in your life.

Of course, logically this is very different, but the brain doesn’t work like that and your teenager’s brain will not distinguish between these two types of sudden hugs and touches that happened without permission.

Ultimately, the teenager in your life needs to be in control of their body at all times so you can discuss safety planning and ask permission before hugging and touching. Yet make sure you don’t take away their freedoms out of your own fear. For example, I know you can track phones and I know certain communities have safety apps that you can download, so you can talk about these with your teenager. Just make sure they don’t feel restricted or controlled in the process.

The reason why I’m mentioning this is because my social environment (the term I use to subtly refer to something) have a Ring doorbell camera and whenever I would go out, leave the house or do something, they would ask me about it later on. They thought it was funny that they could see who was coming or going from the house but it seriously negatively impacted my mental health but I felt so controlled, I lacked all freedom that it was actually something that played a minor role in my sexual assault.

Furthermore, after my sexual assault, my social environment was struggling with me telling them what had happened and one day someone was seriously angry with me that I didn’t want to hug them. So I forced myself to and I hated it, I felt so disrespected and that’s one of the main reasons why I don’t consider my social environment a good place for support. Them not caring about my requests not to be touched for a little while whilst I recovered and started healing a little (my sexual assault had only happened three days before), set up the emotional tone in the relationship that they didn’t want to hear me out, respect me or move heaven and earth to help me.

Please listen and respect your teenager’s boundaries no matter how hard they are.

Never Blame The Teenager In Your Life

I’ve already mentioned why you should never ever blame a sexual assault survivor in other chapters. However, you should remind the teenager in your life that their sexual assault was never their fault and all the trauma responses and whatever happened during the sexual assault was what they had to do to survive. Therefore, what you can do as a parent, a friend or loved one is simply to give the teenager in your life the patience and be the empathetic listener they deserve. There are a lot of online resources and books to help you become an empathetic listener in case you need some extra support. For instance, Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

On the whole, as someone who did have their social environment blame them for the sexual assault before claiming a few weeks later this wasn’t true (gaslighting), this is extremely damaging. I cannot stress enough how you should avoid doing this at all costs, because this will place a massive wedge between you and the teenage survivor, and you might not notice, you might think that everything in your relationship is going okay. Yet in my experience, the survivor will remember what you said, what you implied and how you made them feel.

I don’t want that for you, because if you’re hunting down information and reading or listening to this chapter. Then you are actually amazing as far as I’m concerned because no one did that for me. No one wanted to support me so badly that they hunted down information in an effort to support you.

Just make sure your teenager feels loved, supported and listened to and the road to recovery should be a little easier even if it doesn’t seem like it some days.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

I know this chapter was mainly aimed at parents, loved ones and friends of teenage sexual assault survivors whereas my normal audience is aspiring and qualified psychologists and people interested in psychology. Yet here’s the tragic truth about sexual violence, it doesn’t matter who you are, what your job is or what your future or current job is. You yourself or someone you know or someone you love can be a sexual assault survivor.

This is critical information to know whoever you are so that’s why I have no issue having this in the book at all.

Overall, during this difficult time of recovery, please be kind to yourself and your teenager because self-care is flat out critical for both of you. Definitely reach out to a mental health professional and/ or a rape crisis centre for support as you process what on earth happened to the teenager in your life.

There will be dark times, dark moments and you will be terrified for your teenager at times because you love them, you want to support them and you will struggle with how to handle this aftermath.

However, whilst sexual assault does devastate lives, there is hope for a better life if you want to heal. There are other survivors, specialist mental health professionals and a lot of other great people that want to help you and your teenager heal and recover.

It is possible regardless of how difficult processing sexual assault is on both of you.

I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.

If you want to learn more, please check out:

FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET

Breaking The Silence: A Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology Guide To Sexual Violence, Rape and Sexual Assault. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Patreon for exclusive access and rewards

Have a great day.

Forensic Psychology References and Further Reading

Campbell, R., Greeson, M. R., Fehler-Cabral, G., & Kennedy, A. C. (2015). Pathways to help: Adolescent sexual assault victims’ disclosure and help-seeking experiences. Violence against women, 21(7), 824-847.

DeSalvo, L. (2000). Writing as a way of healing: How telling our stories transforms our lives. Beacon Press.

Feuereisen, P. (2018). Invisible girls: The truth about sexual abuse. Seal Press.

https://rainn.org/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-new-teen-age/201207/7-ways-to-help-a-teen-survivor-of-sexual-assault

Miles, L. W., Valentine, J. L., Mabey, L. J., Hopkins, E. S., Stodtmeister, P. J., Rockwood, R. B., &

Moxley, A. N. (2024). A systematic review of evidence-based treatments for adolescent and adult sexual assault victims. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 30(3), 480-502.

Moore, C. L., & Van Vliet, K. J. (2022). Women’s experiences of nature as a pathway to recovery from sexual assault. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 62(1), 123-150.

Rosenberg, M. B., & Chopra, D. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life: Life-changing tools for healthy relationships. PuddleDancer Press.

Thomas, S. (2021). The Impact of Sexual Assault Disclosure on Mental Health and Recovery (Doctoral dissertation, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology).

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