Sexual Abuse

Experts say that 15% of people have been sexually abused or assaulted.

Half of these incidents happened before the age of 18. Some estimates are almost twice as high. 

This kind of emotional trauma can cause problems in relationships, low self-worth, anxiety, addictions, and weight gain, among other things. You can be totally free of the trauma, though, if you change how you think and feel about it. We have helped hundreds of clients to do this using hypnosis and NLP.

When a client gets over sexual trauma, they often see big changes in many parts of their lives right away. Unfortunately, they are less likely to share their experiences in online reviews or testimonials, due to the subject matter. Instead, we will say a few words about typical client cases of sexual abuse and how we helped them.

You don't have to be held back by the trauma of sexual abuse forever.

Frequently Asked Questions

One woman was molested by her uncle when she was a child. Another was drugged at a nightclub, kidnapped, and raped by several men over the course of several hours. A man was sexually abused by his priest. A woman experienced date rape in college and gained a lot of weight as a result. Another woman was molested by her pediatrician when she was a pre-teen (see her story below). These are just some of the people who have come to us with emotional suffering that we have helped to fix. Most of them didn’t think they were good enough. Many had problems like worry, insomnia, being overweight, addictions, or feeling shame or anger all the time. Some of them had been taking psychiatric drugs or going to talk therapy for years. After a short time working with us, they all got much better or recovered completely. For example, they no longer had problems with anxiety, anger, or emotional eating. Their self-esteem, sleep, and outlook on life also improved.

Any event that makes you feel bad can have long-lasting negative effects that we call trauma. Any kind of violence can cause anxiety, which can lead to bad habits like overeating or drinking too much. Even when sexual abuse isn’t violent, it’s still a big deal, because of the negative ideas our society has about sexuality. Because of this, people who have been sexually abused often feel awful and may blame themselves. Keeping the experience a secret or telling others who react emotionally can make guilt and shame worse. As with other types of trauma, sexual abuse makes people feel bad because of how they think about it, not because of what happened. We can help you change the way you think so you can stop being hurt by things that happened in the past.

Goodwin Hypnosis’ Todd Goodwin describes an example of sexual abuse and obesity:

“I had a 30-year-old client (let’s call her Anna) whose significant obesity since age 18 was clearly rooted in emotional trauma. Anna had a habit of overeating when stressed. She knew how to eat properly but could not do so consistently. When I first met with Anna at her initial consultation, I asked her if she had experienced anything traumatic. She immediately burst into tears and revealed that when she was 12 years old, her mother took her to a physician who sexually molested her during a physical exam. To add insult to injury, her mother sat only a few feet away, watched the entire act, and did nothing to intervene. Amazingly, she and her mother had never discussed it even once.

Anna’s trauma consisted of her memory of this experience, her self-judgment, and her perception of her mother’s disloyalty and lack of support. The resulting anger towards her mother and herself was “eating” at her.

Anna also felt shame, which is an extremely toxic emotion and quite common among those who have experienced childhood sexual abuse. It is not so much the sexual abuse itself that causes shame but the self-abusive and self-blaming interpretation of the experience. One reason for the association between shame and sexual abuse is that certain religions have labeled sex “bad” or shameful, and so the judgment of the act can lead to beliefs such as, “I’m dirty,” “I’m a bad person,” or “I’m not worthy of love.” She was also angry at herself for allowing the doctor to touch her, despite her reservations. Those beliefs generate shame, self-rejection, or self-hatred, which often leads to anxiety, substance abuse, addictions, and significant weight gain.

After Anna’s first consensual sexual experience at 18, she suddenly began to gain weight, eventually totaling 100 pounds over several years. She knew that the weight gain was the ultimate effect of her stress, but she did not realize how critical a factor her emotional trauma and shame had been. When someone cries at the first mention of a traumatic event, it’s a safe assumption that the wound has not healed. In fact, I have found that if you can feel emotional discomfort when recalling an experience, it is still affecting you at an emotional, physiological, or behavioral level, even if only slightly.

Unfortunately, simply talking about her experience, feelings, and irrational thoughts and behaviors would accomplish little, even if we were to do it for months. After all, she had already done that. If conscious, rational awareness were sufficient to resolve trauma, talk therapy would be fast and effective, and few people would suffer from anxiety or addictions. Subconscious resistance to accepting and releasing the past causes emotional suffering, and deep acceptance is essential to emotional healing. That is where hypnosis and NLP work phenomenally well.

After a few sessions to neutralize her traumatic memories, establish a strong self-worth, and forgive herself and her mother, Anna immediately noticed that her eating habits were much better, she was more relaxed, and her temper around her mother had improved.”

Take the first step toward recovery

Helping you to resolve emotional trauma is one of our specialties. Working with us directly and privately is the most effective way.