That attempt at therapy immediately placed her at risk of AIDS, other STIs and pregnancy – not to mention the probability of her peers suddenly labelling her a slut because of her apparently radically altered behaviour.

The aim of the therapy should have been to separate what she had heretofore thought of as sex from real, intimate relations where the partners approach each other as equals. In a way, the patient had never really known what sex was: only what it was to be raped.

And it looks as if the script she heard did not actually correct her; it only told her to go out and rape men, as if that could somehow magically get back at her father for what he’d done to her, or undo the harm he’d done – a harm she still had to correct herself.

I have never handled a female rape patient, because if one approached me I would direct her to the nearest competent Tantric dakini, in the same way that a practicing GP would refer any patient worried about cancer to a specialist in oncology.

He matches the client’s experience and gives her a different perspective. So by re-focusing her on her personal power, on her body parts and abilities rather than some external part of other person. It’s brilliant.

I’ve read and used this story before and I think it would also be useful to note the Erickson’s subtle time shift. As you may be aware a penis is hard before sex and after it’s pretty much the reverse of that.

By having the client shift to a different time perspective it also gave her the ability to go through the act of sex, which previously had terrified her, to get to part she was looking for, which was the end. This time and perspective shift gave her “the control” during the entire process.

My two cents
Michael Harris, PhD

As we understand the transition from victim to empowerment there is a time where the oppressed and abused must sieze power, their own power. The hope is that once the power is attained it will be used positively. When someone has seen the hard erect penis as a source of terror, there is delight in disempowering the hard erect penis. Did the young woman become a misantrope? Of course not. She came to be empowered to choose the men with whom she would be sexual. She became empowered to choose when not to be sexual.

Any script, technique or idea must be used with appropriate care. This is not an approach to use with every victim of sexual abuse or predatory behavior. Used with discretion this is a powerful and effective script. I am confident that Erickson followed up with this girl and helped her to find wholeness.

So much of the psychology of sexual abuse seems to point to the concept of the “vicious cycle,” where the abused grows up to become an abuser, without once experiencing the communication and communion of healthy, loving sexual union.

That’s a script that seems designed to turn a patient into some sort of Black Widow succubus. And that thought terrifies me, because I know of at least one woman who does think like that – total sociopaths, one and all. We have enough monsters in the world. Who’d want to make /more/ sociopaths already?

I’d rather find a competent Dakini and teach the patient Tantra instead. Far less likely to turn the patient into another man hating, serial killing Aileen Wuornos.