Former director of the Psychotrauma Center of the Paris Institute of Victimology, this American is a member of the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence Against Children (Ciivise), which calls in its report published Thursday to "guarantee to victims specialized care in psychotrauma".

Question: What are the effects of sexual violence and incest on children and adults?

Answer: The victim has psychotraumatic disorders.

She relives the violence in the form of reminiscences, intrusive thoughts, flashes, nightmares.

She experiences psychological and emotional distress in the face of an event that reminds her of the traumatic memory.

Forced to see the incestuous grandfather again, she is flooded by these images.

Raped in a shower, she is upset when going to the bathroom.

At the same time, there will be an avoidance strategy, she doesn't want to think about it, talk about it, for fear of not being able to manage her emotions and her thoughts.

She may have memory lapses, not remembering exactly what happened, due to neurological changes.

There may even be traumatic amnesia.

She doesn't remember certain things, which come back, because of sensory elements, when her children are the age she was at the time of the incest.

One can also observe a traumatic emotional dissociation: I remember very well, I tell but I do not feel any emotion.

Or physical: there are parts of my body that I don't feel.

For example, if there has been sodomy, we do not feel when we have to have a bowel movement.

The victim produces more stress hormones and experiences difficulty concentrating, irritability, difficulty falling back to sleep, startles, headaches, stomach aches, backaches.

And there are secondary associated disorders: eating such as bulimia or anorexia.

Addictions.

Depression, self-harm, suicide attempts.

The shrinks will find these victims in their office, who have come for another reason.

This is where you have to ask the question: have you been the victim of sexual violence?

Q: Can they be cured?

A: If specialized psychotrauma care is provided within a year, the traumatic suffering can even be erased to a large extent.

And if specialized care is provided years after the violence, it will significantly reduce the symptoms.

It will be like for diabetes or osteoarthritis, flare-ups, crises at certain times.

Q: What treatments are effective?

A: Trauma-focused therapies are successful in improving symptoms.

They focus on the practical aspects, helping to live.

We are going to reflect with a child attacked in the toilets and anxious to go to the toilets.

How can you feel safe?

Should we leave the door open?

Bring a cell phone?

The therapist asks questions and guides the victim to help him understand how the trauma works, how he was taken over, why it is the aggressor who is responsible and not her.

During sex, what can help bring you back to the + here and now +?

If the sheets were blue during the assault, avoid that color.

For children, therapy with animals can be a help.

Touching an animal will produce oxytocin which will reduce stress.

Methods that focus on the body and artistic expression can be helpful.

The psychoanalyst has a posture of not asking questions, he lets the person go where he wants to go.

One of the symptoms of psychotrauma is avoidance.

You have to focus on the traumatic event, talk about the mechanism of the violence, show how the aggressor put the person under control.

The government has announced its intention to set up a psychotrauma center in each department.

© 2022 AFP