Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome

"And I say in here, disclosing incest and child sexual abuse by a very young child is a process and not an event. But it’s just so absolutely true, and yet we expect our little children to go in and talk to, you know, police officers and so on, and people they do not know, and we expect them to just spill their little hearts out, but they’re not going to do that, and that's expecting an awful lot of a little child.

And , so I wanted to bring out the child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome and why children don't just spill their guts out type thing, like we might as adults. But, you know, when you think about it , when I think of all the adult survivors, so many of them, they have told me the very first time they told anybody, and they've been holding this in like - the oldest one being 84."

Dr. Reeves, J.P. v. British Columbia (Children and Family Development), 2015 BCSC 1216

Thank you, Dr. Reeves! Finally, a mental health practitioner with true intelligence, knowledge, wisdom and compassion. The judges in our case accused me of coaching my child because they said she didn't disclose to Dr. Yuille or a social worker or the RCMP officers. Why would a child who is being abused by the same person taking her to interviews disclose that she is being abused when she is terrified of the consequences?

I thought this was common sense.

#incest #childsexualabuse #childsexualabuseaccommodationsyndrome #BritishColumbia #ChildrenandFamilyDevelopment