29 Sep Reconciliation/Reunification
Much of our reconciliation work is with a range of people from adolescents to adults who perpetrate sexual abuse, physical violence, or neglect and their victims and other family members. We begin by helping the perpetrator get through a degree of treatment that allows them to identify accountability for their behavior, remorse about their actions, and sufficient compassion to help them express empathy. We also help them to honor who their victim was before they were violated and to tolerate the victim’s need for power and control in the relationship.
A father in our program who had molested his child over a number of years, once said, “I will wave a white flag in honor of my victim for the rest of my life.”
The perpetrator must also achieve an appreciation of their future risk, risk factors, and capacity to manage their risk; we help them to admit the full extent of what they have done. Once this happens, they commit to an apology/clarification session(s) with their victim(s) and/or other family members. However, such sessions are not started until a victim is ready. Such readiness may require their own treatment; sometimes victims want all clarified details, explanations, and an apology in writing first. Victims always have the option to bring whomever they wish to the meeting(s). A safe parent or caretaker and/or the victim’s therapist can participate in this capacity. We help the victim feel safe and in control, and we help the perpetrator respect this. We are also there to support the perpetrator as they detail and apologize for their harmful behavior. This further supports the perpetrator as they remind their victim of their understanding of their impact and acknowledge the difficulty the victim might be experiencing sitting in their presence. We support the victim as they listen, ask questions, and express feelings and concerns.
When a perpetrator can clarify what they have done to those they have hurt and apologize for it, a new level of healing begins for everyone
While no victim is expected to offer forgiveness, closure for all is the goal. We help create the best possible resolution. Some victims and extended victims will have been in their own therapy and will already know the kind of closure they seek. For instance, sometimes the victims are there to hear an apology; sometimes they will ask for financial support with school or therapy; sometimes they want to understand or offer forgiveness, acceptance, or tolerance to their perpetrator. Sometimes children miss the family member who has abused them, and they or extended victims want to improve their relationship with the abuser. Sometimes the family wants the perpetrator to heal, become a more decent person, and come back to the family. Coming to these or any conclusion is a necessary and important part of the work, and the need to do so is normal. When the perpetrator is a family member, some victims may wish to continue in Family Reunification work.
The hope for transformation of family life from unpardonable to safe and loving, can be achieved.
In our experience, family members and victims are often attached to the perpetrator, and they will often choose to wait for them to complete their treatment and come back to them as a healthy spouse, partner, and/or parent. While they wait, they do their own empowering work of learning how to assert and protect themselves. At A Step Forward, it is our experience that it is safest to do family reunification while the perpetrator is under the guidance of probation, parole, and/or dependency/family court. During such a treatment mandate, therapists, along with the victim and family members, are in a better position to leverage the work while executing a refined reunification process. While the structure of family reunification includes a step-by-step process where safety planning and the victim’s needs are paramount, we also insist the offending adult (or adolescent) be assessed and assigned low-risk status; that all involved parties pay close attention to the readiness of the offender, victim, and other family members before the process can begin; and that the therapist(s) navigate the pace. We do not take lightly the risk family members are taking, even when there is reason to support reunification. We approach the work carefully and thoughtfully, and our expertise has resulted in a great deal of success with traumatized families.
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