Do Self Help Group Helps

Do Self-Help Support Groups Help Incest Survivors?

Both male and female survivors of incest can be helped to heal. For many, self-help groups are often the first step in seeking help for healing.

Members Share Their Experiences

01

This is often the first and most healing realization — that they are not alone and others have walked this same road.

Members Find Strength to Heal

02

Others have also felt the pain of silence. Survivors realize they have a safe space to express what was once hidden.

Members Realize They Are Not to Blame

03

They were victimized by someone they trusted — and that truth begins to break the shame that binds so many.

Members Find Strength to Heal

04

Members experience support in resolving past experiences and learning to live freely in the present.

Members Find New Ways to Cope

05

By hearing how others cope, survivors build emotional strength and faith for the journey ahead.

Members Learn to Live Again

06

Through mutual understanding and prayer, they begin to put the abuse behind them and rebuild their present lives.

Compimentary Support That Strengthens Recovery

Incest Survivor Self-Help Groups can also be an effective complement to other services such as:

Critical Humanitarian Aid

  • Personal Therapy and Counseling (where available).

  • Personal Psychotherapy with Licensed Psychotherapists.

  • Trained Counselors with experience in counseling:

    • Incest or Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors.

  • Spiritual Healing Counselors, with experience in counseling:

    • Incest or Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors.

  • Participation in other self-help groups focusing on various healing issues:

    Alcoholics Anonymous

    Narcotics Anonymous

    Sexual Abuse Anonymous

    And Other Self-Help Support Groups.​

    Delivering Aid

    Facts about Child Sexual Assault

    (from “No More Secrets: Protecting Your Child from Sexual Abuse” by Caren Adams & Jennifer Fay)

    • Chances are that we all know someone who has been a victim, even if we are not aware of it.

    • Both boys and girls are victimized, though girls are more often than boys.

    • Young children, even preschoolers, are assaulted.

    • The numbers vary from study to study, but all are overwhelmingly high.

    • In the United States, at least 1 in 4 females are assaulted before reaching the age of 13.

    • 10% of the victims reported are boys.

    • At least 10% of children who are assaulted are under the age of 5.

    • From 30 to 45% of all children are sexually assaulted in some way before the age of 18.

    💔 What Is Incest?

    Incest Survivors Anonymous, a support group located in California, gives this definition of incest:

    “From the viewpoint of the survivor encompassing the emotional, mental, spiritual and/or physical damage done to the child —
    Incest is a betrayal of trust, an overt and covert sexual contact or act which possibly includes: touching or non-touching, verbal seduction or abuse, intercourse, sodomy, anal intercourse, direct threats, implied threats, or other forms of abuse, between people who are closely related or perceived themselves to be closely related or in whom a child perceives trust; such as, mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousin, stepparents, stepsiblings, half siblings, live-in lovers, brother, sister, neighbor, family friend, babysitter, or professionals such as: teacher, professor, school principal, nurse, doctor, orderly, therapist, social worker, minister, priest, nun, shopkeeper, scout leader, laborer, workman, pilot, military personnel, lawyer, judge, policeman, foster parent, politician, corporate executive, and any other occupation.”

    When this trust between a child and an older child, sibling, parent-figure, or other adult is violated, that act becomes incestuous.
    We put full responsibility on the initiator for whatever took place.
    The child’s age may range from newborn, preschool, school-age, teenager, and older.