What Is Sexual Abuse?

Find a therapist to heal from sexual abuse

Our efforts to advance awareness of sibling sexual abuse and support survivors are making a difference.

Survivors, parents, professionals, and others are here and reaching out to provide support and resources.

Disclosing sibling sexual abuse is necessary, hard, and transformative.

Recently, two young survivors of sibling sexual abuse (SSA), aged 17 and 22, reached out to me. I cannot imagine having been able to reach out in the same way when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to find any other survivors or any reassuring or sympathetic resources when I was young. Back then, there were no websites like Sibling Sexual Trauma and 5WAVES, Discord groups for survivors and parents of survivors, books on SSA, or any other forms of support.

All that has changed since I was in my 20s, nearly 40 years ago now. In the last five years, organizations, websites, and podcasts have been created, offering resources that were previously inaccessible.

Support groups, trained therapists, and stories by and for sibling sexual abuse survivors have cropped up all over the world. Scholars are researching disclosure and the effects of SSA, and publishing their results. And now a conference, Sibling Sexual........

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