Narrative Approaches to Working with Adult Male Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

This book presents first-hand accounts from two male survivors of childhood sexual abuse and from the counsellor who worked with them.

The two brothers suffered severe sexual abuse from their grandfather and were each unaware of the other’s ordeal. Despite having been subjected to the same abusive conditions their stories of their survival and recovery are very different. They describe the work they separately undertook with a counsellor and discuss a number of issues which include sexuality, spirituality, perception of maleness and relationships.

Kim Etherington goes on to describe the counsellor’s perspective, and draws out the implications for counselling practice. She discusses the client-counsellor relationship, the techniques and approaches she used and makes links with her other work. She explores the significance of boundaries when working with members of the same family and working in parallel with another therapist.

The final part of the book describes the process of undertaking research with ex-clients by describing the creation of this book. Particular attention is paid to the process of informed consent and the ethics of using ex-clients’ work for such purposes. Throughout the book there is an interweaving of the clients’, counsellors’ and researcher’s reflexive process which is layered between metaphors, poems, fairy stories and narrative.