I discuss Sigmund Freud’s theories around hysteria and childhood sexual abuse and how he was so right about the epidemic of CSA until he decided to be extremely wrong about it. I share what I learned from Dr. Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery on Freud’s discoveries around CSA, repressed memory and sexual trauma.
Alisa answers a reader’s question about living with nightmares and body memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) without clear narrative memories and offers strategies for navigating symptoms of complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).
I discuss Sigmund Freud’s theories around hysteria and childhood sexual abuse and how he was so right about the epidemic of CSA until he decided to be extremely wrong about it. I share what I learned from Dr. Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery on Freud’s discoveries around CSA, repressed memory and sexual trauma.
So many childhood sexual abuse survivors are re-experiencing their trauma right now through non-narrative body memories and other PTSD symptoms and are overwhelmed with unclear and confusing memories of feeling unsafe and violated. I write about the countless survivors I’ve heard from who’ve said how triggering a time this is for them, how they were okay for so long until simply they weren’t, and how overwhelming it is to try to process all this trauma during a global pandemic.
Alisa interviews Dr. Jennifer Freyd about the lie of false memory syndrome, the dissolution of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, and the relationship between childhood sexual abuse, trauma, and memory.
How many of us healing from sexual trauma that we do not have a clear memory of? We look into how many of us are seeking information on healing from sexual violence child sex abuse while not remembering the trauma clearly.
I answer a question I get asked all the time by other sexual violence survivors: With only body memories, do I still have moments of doubt about my childhood sexual abuse? I discuss how to live both with certainty of my survivorship while having moments of doubt fueled abuse and gaslighting, and how complicated memory and trauma can be.
6 Things to Know About Sexual Trauma and Memory Loss. This post discusses memory loss and sexual trauma and child sex abuse and PTSD. I explain how our brains work to make it so we can have little or no memory of our abuse, and how this is a completely normal response to sexual trauma.
