Catherine said: "I'm scared, but the time is ripe." She wanted to take a next step in the processing of a deep wound from her youth. She had a memory that, as a fourteen-year old, the door of her bedroom was opened, and a dark shadow stood in the light that came through the door; then her memory went blank. The next day she had gone to school, and she knew that her life would never be the same. Something terrible had happened, but she wasn't aware what it had been.

As there was no other story to tell, and because I had worked with Catherine before, I could immediately give her the first sentence for the image of the dark shadow standing in the light of the doorway. After this sentence, she said: "I wish my mother had been there to protect me." I gave her the first and second Logosynthesis sentence for that wish, and she seemed to relax. However, when I gave her the third sentence "I retrieve all my energy, bound up in all my reactions to the fact that my mother didn't protect me", she was visibly overwhelmed by the pain of the memory.

She said, in tears: "I feel so alone." When I quietly asked her what made her feel so alone, she said that her mouth was 'occupied' and that she could not speak. To not interrupt the flow of the process and support her in this state of utter loneliness, I decided to say the sentences on her behalf, for what had been occupying her mouth. That brought an enormous relief, and it became clear what it was that occupied her mouth: She had been orally raped. Catherine said, angrily, but also relieved: "Such a damned pig!"  

Now it almost seemed that the work was finished. To check for any remaining introjects, I asked Catherine to tell me the story again, from the moment the man entered the room until the time he left. This reactivated another layer, and she remembered vividly the feel of semen running from her mouth down her cheeks. Again, I said the three sentence on her behalf, and she was able to process the experience in minutes. She said that it felt at the same time completely unknown and disgusting. She had had no previous sexual experience with a man before this incident.

There is no way to avoid the fact that children are abused in this world, but Logosynthesis can be very helpful to cope with and process the trauma of sexual abuse. For that, it's very important that there is a strong working alliance.