Body of Evidence Launch

My latest book, Body of Evidence, will be launched on March 8th – International Women’s Day – at 2pm in Chapters Bookstore. Please consider this your own personal invitation to join us. Body of Evidence is a series of essays about the effect that child sexual abuse has had on me. While I was raped […]

Trauma

This post first appeared on the IAMAS website in December, 2024. Popular culture sometimes resorts to the lazy trope of “mothers as the root of all trauma and, therefore, all the problems of the world.” I am being glib, but only marginally. The word “trauma” is over-used almost to the point of it being meaningless. […]

Why Talk Therapy Might Not Be Working For You

Sigmund Freud,  Alfred Adler, Otto Rank, Karl Abraham, Snador Ferenczi, Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck. All men. All European. All white. All privileged. All neuro-typical. All heterosexual. All working in the early decades of the last century. All part of the reason why talk therapy may not be working for […]

Sexual Healing After Sexual Abuse: Fireside Circles For Women

A history of sexual violence is, unfortunately, a reality for almost one in three women. Many rape crisis centres and therapists address issues around shame, blame, and self-loathing. Few, however, address one of the more intimate issues that arises from sexual violence; that of sexual pleasure. Reclaiming our sexual selves after sexual abuse can be […]

September

Ah, September! For many in the northern hemisphere, it signals the end of summer, days getting noticeably shorter, a distinct chill in the air towards the latter half of the month, and the return to formal education. In Ireland, the first week of September is usually brought to us by better weather than we have […]

She Knew

“She knew” was almost the title of my PhD, because every one of my participants told me that their mothers knew they were being sexually abused. In every case – except for one – the mothers took the sides of abusers. My own experience was the same; my mother also took the side of my […]

Siblings Too

Today is a day dedicated, by those of us who work in the arena of sexual violence, to acknowledging the specific harms of sexual abuse by a sibling.