Everything You Never Thought You Wanted to Know About Abuse, Victim Blaming Language, & Sex Addiction
How I find therapists to vet :
- Go to PsychologyToday website and input your zip code.
- Then narrow down the search by clicking on "Issues" and selecting the options Domestic Abuse, Sexual Abuse, & Trauma and PTSD. (Do NOT select Addiction or Sexual Addiction!! You don't need an addiction therapist, you need a therapist who understands abuse and trauma. If a therapist TRULY understands abuse, trauma, and victims, then everything sex addiction /betrayal trauma related will be common sense)
FYI: The CSAT training is FULL OF CODEPENDENCY/victim blaming. Stephanie Carnes runs the CSAT trainings (her father Patrick Carnes made up the CSAT label and lets her run it. The same Patrick Carnes that also said parents are sexually attracted to their children 🤮 See screenshot at the bottom) and she teaches therapists information about betrayal trauma out of her "Facing Heartbreak" workbook which has a ton of victim blaming. This means that therapists are being told they are learning betrayal trauma, when in fact they are learning a hybrid of victim blaming models and betrayal trauma, and possibly don't even know it.... after all, the Carnes are the "experts" in the sex addiction industry. (Examples of victim blaming models : Codependency, Trauma Bonding, Stockholm Syndrome, Reactive Abuse, Learned Helplessness, Prodependency, telling victims they are acting like a victim, in victim mode, or in victim mentality, etc).
Stephanie Carnes and the CSAT community still have a lot to learn about trauma & abuse. No good therapist would ever say such horrible blaming things below to a woman who has been raped, so why would they say it to a betrayed wife who's being abused? Are all CSATs uneducated? No. But most are, and it's important to remember that the CSAT label doesn't automatically mean a therapist is good. If someone found a good CSAT therapist then I promise it had nothing to do with their weekend CSAT training 💗
"94.2 % [men] had viewed pornography in the last six months.
Additionally, 82.4% indicated that they currently were regular users of pornography, or had been at some point. Median response for frequency of use over the last six months was 3–4 times per week. Median response for average session length was 15–30 minutes."
*** "religious participants did not report using pornography any more or less frequently than their non-religious counterparts."
PR
"Victim mode",
"Victim Mentality",
"Victim Mindset"
"Stop playing a Victim",
"It's tempting to be the victim"- Leslie Vernick, author of The Emotionally Destructive Marriage,
"Be a survivor, not a victim",
"You're a victim, but you don't have to live there. You have a choice",
"Victim thinking is actually self centered" - Vicki Tidwell Palmer CSAT, Moving Beyond Betrayal
"You are only a victim for a nanosecond" - Pia Mellody via Vicki Tidwell Palmer CSAT, Moving Beyond Betrayal
"Where there is choice... it is impossible to be a victim." - Vicki Tidwell Palmer CSAT, Moving Beyond Betrayal
"After the actual event of being victimized, you are no longer a victim in the present moment" - Vicki Tidwell Palmer CSAT, Moving Beyond Betrayal
These phrases and beliefs should NEVER be used with actual victims. I'm tired of the word "victim" being wrongly used as a weapon or way to control/silence victims under the guise of "empowerment". Can you imagine someone saying these things to a victim who just lost their entire home to a natural disaster? : "Stop playing the victim, get out of your victimhood. It's not presently happening to you anymore, you're no longer a victim of natural disaster. Stop being self centered. You have a choice"?? That would be incredibly insensitive and outright mean.
Contrary to popular belief, being an actual victim is not a feeling, a mood, or state of mind. There's no connotation of weakness in the dictionary definition of "victim". See?:
Victim Definition: "to be hurt, damaged, or killed because of something or someone; a person who is cheated or fooled by someone else"
"Victim" is simply a word that describes that something bad happened to us that wasn't our fault. That's all. Ie. Victim of a car crash, victim of assault, victim of natural disaster, etc. It's not who we are. When we talk about the word "victim" as if it's a negative label, feeling, mood, or state of mind, we are only fueling the belief that there is something wrong with the word "victim". Why WOULDN'T we want a word that means what happened to us wasn't our fault? That's a good thing!
"I use the terms victim and perpetrator..they're situated actions terms, they're not identity terms..I know a lot of people prefer survivor and that's cool, but the word victim at least denotes that a crime has been committed against you. The word survivor does not. So there's something in the word victim that is important."
"The word victim contains a criminal act." - Dr Allan Wade, Centre For Response Based Practice
But, can these phrases be used accurately in any context? Yes, these phrases are commonly and accurately used to describe a perpetrator who is pretending to be a victim of the person they victimized. For example, by definition "victim mentality" means that someone who is not a current victim is playing a victim :
Victim Mentality : "an acquired personality trait in which a person tends to recognize or consider themselves as a victim of the negative actions of others, and to behave as if this were the case in the face of contrary evidence of such circumstances."
However, again, phrases like this should never be used on someone who is actually a victim. Only people/perpetrators who are pretending to be a victim. For anyone to tell an actual current victim that they are in "victim mode", "victim mentality", etc. is LITERALLY TELLING THEM THEY AREN'T A VICTIM AND ARE JUST ACTING LIKE IT!
By acknowledging that I'm a victim, I'm acknowledging that I'm injured and it's not my fault. Again, this is good. But to imply I'm only "playing" a victim, it insinuates that I have fault in my injury, or am not that injured and am just being dramatic. Which is disgusting, incorrect, and wrong.