Improving the career resilience of a survivor of sexual abuse

Abstract

Scant literature is available on victims of sexual abuse who are still presiding in the same environment in which the sexual abuse occurred. Sexual abuse has been shown to cause symptoms of depression, feelings of low self-worth, low moral judgment and feelings of guilt. This study attempted to enhance the career resilience of a sexual abuse survivor by means of life design counselling. The research questions focussed mainly on the characteristics of sexual abuse and career resilience, the influence of sexual abuse on career resilience and how life design counselling can contribute to the career resilience of survivors of sexual abuse. The study was based on a single case study (intrinsic) design and a QUALITATIVE-quantitative approach. The observations and qualitative findings suggested that childhood sexual abuse (CSA) did influence the survivor?s intrinsic representations about herself as well as about others. The findings confirm the impact of CSA on survivors, highlighting previous research on CSA and its influence on future development (personal and emotional), as well as future career resilience and career adaptability. Life design counselling made it suitable as an intervention to be used with survivors of sexual abuse since it explores clients? subjective identity forms as influenced by their experiences and culminates in the writing of new stories. The study contributed to a more complete and comprehensive understanding of CSA and indicated that the life design counselling therapeutic intervention positively enhanced the participant?s self-insight.