Week 6/5

So, since going through this journey I've been getting a lot of questions from people. Messages, people asking me in person, every venue you can think of people have been trying to get my advice about health and fitness.

All I can suggest is to do the research and decide for yourself.

I can give you all the tools in the world, but over 50% of this stuff is an attitude.

I'm not on a diet.
This

The anonymity debate

This was not the blog I sat down to write, that’ll come in a couple of weeks. 

This blog was instead prompted by recent events and news on the evening of Monday 18th August 2014 in the UK. Last week Sir Cliff Richard’s house was searched by the police in regard to sexually inappropriate offences that took place in the 1970’s, while that may have been challenging for some to accept that was not the main furore; the police tipped of the BBC, who recorded the whole “raid” live, and did not inform Cliff (Daily Mail). Both sides are blaming the other and claiming that they themselves were not in the wrong (the independent). Reaction has condemned the Police and the BBC (Yorkshire post; Telegraph), and society (the independent); however, people came forward with allegations against Cliff [London evening Standard]. The whole event has left an uneasy feeling.

The ITV News (one of the main news broadcasters'in the UK) on 18th August 2014, commissioned a poll to look at public attitudes to anonymity for sexual abuse defendants prior to being deemed guilty by a court [ITV News],  which is a hotly debated issue raised a number of times in the press (Huffington Post;The Scotsman) and in parliament (House of Commons - Home Affairs - Fifth Report; the independent), as well as by defendants (ITV news). Part of the explanation for the argument for anonymity is because sexual abuse allegations are so stigmatic and tend to linger in the public mind set regardless of whether the defendant is found not guilty or not (i.e., “no smoke without fire”). The ITV poll found that 74% believed that people facing sexual abuse allegations should receive anonymity prior to a guilty verdict.

This debate is not a straightforward one, it is exceptionally complex one with a number of  interested as well as invested players; the aim of this blog is not to answer the question but to prompt debate and reflection. Some of the main arguments, as I can see them, are from;

Victim – Identifying there defendant gives credence to the victim in the sense that it recognises and validates their abuse claims; it shows them that the criminal justice system is taking them seriously and in doing so it helps them in their journey for justice. It progresses the fight for victims rights. However, outing the defendant can sometimes out the victim, especially if they are vulnerable (i.e., victims of child sexual abuse have anonymity in the UK and there have been cases where poor reporting has resulted in the victim’s identity being outed) and make them feel vulnerable, under pressure pre-trial.

Defendant –The identification of the defendant means that those others around them are aware of their offences, potentially stopping them going underground, making sure that they stick to their pre-trial arrangements, preventing them from reoffending and/or making sure that they do not approach the victim. In addition, other defendants get named in other offences, why should sexual abuse be any different? But sexual abuse has a massive social stigma attached that negatively impacts the defendant, regardless of guilt or the court’s decision, which can impact their current and future lives (i.e., jobs, family life, etc) (ITV news), affecting their mental health and (potentially) increasing their potential risk as well as dangerousness to themselves and/or others. Interestingly, we spend so much academic and professional time discussing community notification post release, forgetting that we notify the community and disclosure their information pre-trial.

Criminal Justice System - This one is most complex position as there is a requirement to protect the public balanced against upholding victims’ rights, defendant’s rights and the integrity of the case (i.e., not to negatively impact the outcome of the case in court or in getting to court through inappropriate procedural behaviour). In short, maintaining the “innocent until proven guilty” aspect of the criminal justice system regardless of related social, personal or professional attitudes. Sexual abuse cases generally fall within a punishment paradigm which means that the core tenants of the criminal justice system can be diametrically opposed, rather than work in tandem.

As I said at the beginning this is a complex issue with no straight forward answer, there are a lot of involved, interested and concerned parties. I for one am not suggesting any distinct course of action, but instead saying that the identification of sexual assault defendants pre-trial outcome has consequences on them, their families, their victims and the criminal justice system: if we are reframing the sexual abuse debate we should look at all angles of it, including this one, regardless of how it makes us feel.

 Kieran McCartan, PhD

Correcting Course: Have We Missed the Boat on our Clients’ Adverse Experiences?

A recent discussion on the ATSA listserv was worth following. It began with the simple question of what sorts of trauma-informed systems of care exist for adolescents who have sexually abused, and extended well beyond. One member basically asked why it is only now that the notion of trauma-informed care seems to be coming into vogue in our field. It is an excellent question with no clear answers for now. One member commented on how in the past many therapists noted that their clients seemed to excuse their abusive actions by claiming that they had themselves been abused. Clearly, a side effect of helping clients in the direction of becoming accountable for their behavior could be the therapist’s implicit or explicit minimizing of their past experiences. This ATSA member commented that while it can be necessary to help people move through defensive excuse-making into a more honest conversation, the original intent of holding clients accountable was never to dismiss the harm that had been done to them.

A case from the author’s experience is haunting and illustrative. In one agency that employs polygraph examinations, it was routine to polygraph clients on their disclosures of past victimization, apparently with the underlying assumption that their clients often sought to excuse their behaviors. While this use of polygraph could itself be the subject of many other discussions, an interesting situation arose when the therapist ordered a polygraph to verify the account of a client in treatment who claimed a lengthy history of sexual abuse as a child. He had received individual therapy for this over the course of a year. Upon failing the examination, the client said that in fact he had been lying to his therapist about this abuse all along. He went so far as to use uncouth language to assert that his treatment team were naïve and foolish for believing him.

Whatever the truth in the above client’s case (and setting aside other florid concerns about his functioning), one is still left with the question of whether other adverse, even traumatic, experiences in this client’s life contributed to his offenses and his behavior in treatment. What events in his background led him to believe that it was in his interest to interact with others this way? In other words, when we ask about abuse, are we asking the wrong questions? Often the question seems to be dichotomous: was he abused or not? Perhaps it’s better to explore all the formative events of one’s life. What are the many ways in which our clients might have been hurt? What sense did they make of these events? How have these events contributed to their views/schemas of themselves and others?

Very little research has shown a direct link between one’s victimization and propensity to abuse. Although controversial, authors as diverse as Susan Clancy and Bruce Rind have observed that not everyone who has been abused experienced their situation as abusive, and many believe that it had little or no effect on them. Certainly, the vast majority of people who are victimized do not go on to abuse others. Yet in our rush to treat only those factors that proximally contribute to re-offense risk (in adherence to the need principle) we could be overlooking important ways to make our treatment more meaningful to our clients (in adherence with the responsivity principle). Ultimately, the question is how effectively can individual clients build safer futures when they don’t have an adequate opportunity to transcend their own past?

A couple of recent studies are worth mentioning. Reavis, Looman, Franco, & Rojas (2013) administered the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire to 151 people who had been violent towards children, engaged in domestic violence, sexually abused, and had stalked others. They found that these types of offenders had significantly higher rates of adverse childhood experiences than men in the general population. Only 9.3% of the sample reported no adverse events in childhood, compared to 38% of the male sample in the ACE study, and 48% reported four or more adverse experiences, compared to 9% of the men in the ACE study. Sex offenders in particular had significantly higher ACE scores than the general population. Likewise, Levenson, Willis, & Prescott (2014) administered the ACE questionnaire to 679 adult males who had sexually abused. Compared to males in the general population, sex offenders had more than three times the odds of child sexual abuse, nearly twice the odds of physical abuse,thirteen times the odds of verbal abuse, and more than four times the odds of emotional neglect and coming from a broken home.

Of course, not everyone responds to adverse and traumatic events equally. Authors such as Geral Blanchard have written on the understanding of post-traumatic growth, that ability not only to integrate traumatic experiences, but to find meaning from them and flourish as a result. Many clients who have sexually abused simply enter treatment looking to prevent further abuse and are not interested in an archeological expedition into their distant past. If there is anything the trauma field has learned, it’s that people who have experienced abuse need to discuss and move beyond it in their own way and in their own time. Sadly, there is far more high-quality research into recovery from abuse than recovery from sexual violence.

Perhaps the biggest question our field has yet to ask is how adverse experiences contribute to the areas that can make meaningful change seem unlikely to therapists and clients alike. It is tempting to think of the sequelae of abuse as being only things like distress and nightmares. It is easy to forget that therapy-interfering factors such as restricted affect, memory problems, relationship issues, and avoidance of situations that remind one of abuse (such as treatment for sexual aggression) are themselves trauma symptoms and not always attempts to avoid responsibility.

So how is it that our field is only now talking about trauma? Perhaps because we’re finally moving past thinking solely in terms of abuse-abuser hypotheses and understanding the nuances of adversity.

David Prescott, LICSW

Gwenda M. Willis, Ph.D., PGDipClinPsyc

PS. This blog was written with advice and contributions by Jill Levenson

References

             Levenson, J.S., Willis, G.M., & Prescott, D.S. (2014). Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Lives of Male Sex Offenders and Implications for Trauma-Informed Care. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment. Avance online publication.doi: 10.1177/1079063214535819.

Reavis, J., Looman, J., Franco, K., & Rojas, B. (2013). Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult

Criminality: How long must we live before we possess our own lives? The Permanente Journal, 17,

44-48.

Week 7: Prepped and Prepared

Drove from Mount Pleasant to Highland, then to Southgate in one day. Then drove from Southgate to Clinton township to Mount Pleasant the next day. It. Sucked. 






BUT, I got fitted for a suit and help posing from a woman I've looked up to for over a year now. Totally worth it. 







Decided on a red/burgundy suit with minimal crystals, partly because I'm a poor college student, but it also

Week 8: Plateau

Plateau. I've hit it.



Weight loss has been on track, but BF has not budged. I feel tighter in some places and measurements have changed, but getting past 13% BF is proving to be a challenge. It might help if I was consistent in my weigh-ins and when/how I got my BF measured. Oops. 



So here are my goals for week 8:



- More fibrous veggies

- Shorter fasted cardio sessions

- One, possibly