Sexual Abuse Specialist

How does sexual assault affect mental health?

Sexual assault occurs when one person inflicts unwanted, nonconsensual, sexual contact on another. Sexual assault can occur between adults, or an adult may assault a child. While women are more likely to experience sexual assault than men, men and boys can also be assaulted.

This violation of your body and your sense of self has a traumatic impact on your life leading to negative self-worth, self-destructive behaviors, poor health outcomes and a variety of mental health conditions. You may develop anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, eating disorders, or in rare cases, dissociative identity disorder.

How does sexual assault impact my well-being?

Sexual assault can damage your psychological well-being in many ways. You may have trouble trusting others and have a disproportionate sense of danger in the world. It’s also common for sexual assault to cause feelings of guilt or shame, which can have a lasting effect on your self-esteem and ability to deal with stress.

You may also have impulse control problems, frequently lashing out in anger or engaging in high-risk activities with no regard for consequences. For example, you may abuse alcohol or other substances or self-harm.

How can a psychologist or therapist help me recover from sexual assault?

At the Soho Center For Mental Health Counseling & Clinical Supervision, the team of mental health experts offers compassionate and highly customized psychotherapy to help you recover from the psychological effects of sexual assault. Your treatment begins with a detailed assessment to learn more about you, your symptoms, and the event that triggered your feelings and condition.

Then, you have a series of weekly appointments in which you and your therapist explore your memories, thoughts, and emotions and discuss how they’re affecting your behaviors. You learn strategies to acknowledge your thoughts and emotions and control your responses.

You may practice dialectical behavioral therapy which teaches you techniques to deal with painful or disruptive emotions and thoughts. Your therapist may also suggest eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, a form of psychotherapy that is particularly helpful when working through trauma.

Throughout therapy, you learn to implement healthy coping strategies instead of turning to self-destructive behaviors.

If you need support to recover from a substance abuse disorder, your therapist can direct you toward resources to help you stop using alcohol or other substances as a coping mechanism while working with you in therapy sessions to resolve the issues stemming from your sexual assault.

If you have been sexually assaulted, recently or during your childhood, contact the team at the Soho Center For Mental Health Counseling & Clinical Supervision by calling or booking online today to get the psychological help you need.