Reports of famous personalities being accused of sexual abusing young girls decades ago, such as Jimmy Savile (deceased English TV celebrity, knighted by the Queen) or Bill Cosby, appear regularly in the news. People without experience dealing with sexual trauma always ask, “Why did it take so long for the accusations to come to the public attention?” The question is asked in a way that is intended to challenge the credibility of the accusers. People with experience dealing with sexual trauma know that, invariably, abusers take advantage of their social position and power to make sure victims are intimidated, frightened, and therefore very reluctant to come forward to report the crime.

Often, when complaints are actually made, they are not taken seriously. They are blocked at the very beginning, by lower levels of administrators, celebrity handlers, and sometimes at the police level. The complaints almost never get to the right place even to be investigated. The abusers are usually not threatened with prosecution until decades have passed and, unfortunately, not until dozens of accusers come forward to break through the “he-is-famous, that-cannot-be-true” barrier.

Therapists may have the concern that they themselves will be sued by people in power who are accused of abuse. They may worry that they will be attacked on some kind of a claim that they were incompetently affirming a client’s delusion and, in that way, threaten the therapist. We must remember that we practice psychotherapy for the benefit of patients that have been traumatized. Often it is the therapist that is the first individual to undermine the belief instilled by abusers that no one will take their claims of abuse seriously. We cannot help them heal if we do not communicate our confident belief to our client.

If a client told me that she had been abused by someone revered by the public, like Bill Cosby or Jimmy Savile, a critical question will then follow, implicitly or explicitly, “Do you believe me?”

I would respond just as I would if they told me that someone not famous, perhaps their parent, had abused them. Experienced therapists usually have developed enough insight to determine whether the client is telling their truth or lying for some ulterior motive. If the client shows all the congruent body-language and demeanor of someone telling me of past trauma, I would have no difficulty recognizing that truth. Within that recognition, the truth I am concerned about is whether or not the patient has been traumatized. As I write in Engaging Multiple Personalities, the exact details are not important to the therapy. What is important is to recognize the truth of the trauma and proceed to support the patient in the healing process.

To show doubt about the traumatic memory, or to demand external checks on the accuracy of any memory, will likely be an experience of re-traumatization for the client. The key to understanding this is that abusers always impress upon their victims that no one will believe them, that they have no power to convince anyone that any abuse has taken place. This is why in the case of Sir Jimmy Savile, it took decades for these cases of child sexual abuse to come to the public awareness.

At the time of the crimes, victims were generally far too scared to tell anyone. Indeed, if they told someone, they were not believed. After all, Sir Jimmy was honored and knighted by Her Majesty the Queen. Her Majesty would never knight anyone who had done such an evil thing. How dare the victim suggest that! A similar logic is used against those accusing Bill Cosby of sexual abuse.

As a therapist, if your assessment is that the client has been traumatized, you need the courage to stand by your client, to support the truth of their painful history of abuse. If, in the unlikely situation the therapist is put on the stand in court, the therapist has every right to affirm and assert that:

1. Yes, I believe the patient was telling me the truth of her abuse experience.
2. No, I did not seek external corroborating proof as no such proof was necessary to proceed with psychotherapy. Investigations are the responsibility of the police. Following those investigations, it is up to the lawyers and judges to argue about whether or not the burden of proof for criminal law purposes has been met – which is a very different standard than a therapist needs to determine whether or not a patient has been traumatized. My expertise allows me to determine that the patient has indeed been traumatized, and that is all I need to provide therapy.
3. The attack by the defense lawyers will likely be based in the argument that the client’s identification of the abuser to the therapist is hearsay. But, hearsay evidence is permitted in court if you are stating it not for confirming the truth of the statement but rather for the purpose of confirming that the statement itself was made. Remain confident. You can clearly state that you are not accusing the public figure, your client is and you have no reason to doubt her. In truth, the only reason for doubting the accusers of Jimmy Savile was his public persona. Again, this is the same argument people use for doubting the accusers of Bill Cosby. Any therapist who has dealt with trauma knows that the public persona of abusers is often quite different than their private conduct. The Catholic church is dealing with the repercussions of this dichotomy and their failure to protect innocent children for many decades.
4. All I need for doing therapy is the confidence that my client is telling me the truth of a past abuse experience, and I have no doubt, based on my training and experience, that she was abused. I am not interested in who abused her, except that in all abuse situations where there is a relationship between the abuser and the abused, the abuser is always someone in a position of power over the abused, that it was someone she could have trusted, and that individual took advantage of her. I do not need a lie-detector test or a police forensic report to confirm that abuse happened for providing therapeutic support to that client.