As a trauma expert, I was contacted today by Miho Nagano, a reporter for a weekly Japanese magazine. She asked thoughtful questions about what life would be like in the immediate and more distant future for these girls who experienced kidnapping, rape and imprisonment, and then reporting of their traumas. How will they heal? What can help them? How will it affect them that their trauma and names have been publicized?
Here are some of the answers I gave her (which most Americans won’t be able to read because they will be printed in Japanese!).
1. How will they heal? What can help them? I told her that hopefully, because of the involvement of law enforcement and hopefully victim’s service in Cleveland, Ohio, they will be offered a choice of the two treatments with the highest validation: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, (EMDR) or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). EMDR has advantages of helping the brain to process or “digest” distressing memories and then allow them to be stored in a more healthy manner in the brain, so that the person knows in body, heart and mind, “That was in the past. It’s over now.” Of course we all want to put trauma behind us as fast as possible, and want to say “It’s over.” But most of us do that too prematurely, which leaves us vulnerable to that memory popping up vividly at some unexpected moment(s) in the future — sometimes years later.
Research has shown that EMDR works in 1/2 to 1/3 the time of CBT, and produces more “Post-traumatic Growth” than CBT. Additionally, it has a lower drop-out rate than CBT. Veterans and others who don’t like to talk about trauma prefer it for that reason. You don’t have to talk much to do EMDR therapy. And EMDR does not require a lot of homework (CBT does).
2. Will the 3 girls help or communicate with each other?
That is an unknown to me. I don’t know if they were able to be a support system to each other, or if their abductor “played them against each other.” In the first case, they could definitely continue to be a support system to each other, if they are not too overwhelmed by the barrage of publicity, the changes in their families lives since their disappearance, and so on. Each one will have a lot of adjusting to do to a family who grew for 10 years, just as they did.
In the second case, just seeing each other may trigger their trauma. I hope that didn’t happen, but this crafty rapist/kidnapper/imprisoner found some ways to control them very powerfully.
How will it affect them that their trauma and names have been publicized? This is a sensitively asked question. Generally, in cases of rape, the victims names are not published. Somehow that tradition was abandoned. Perhaps it was the media frenzy that developed when the story broke. The names were published in the Wall Street Journal today.
The reason for this tradition is to protect victims that have already been traumatized. I believe this will add another trauma to their list. They may have a strong need to hide while they heal, to regain their privacy which they lost when the story broke.
To find a Certified EMDR therapist you can either go to www.emdria.org, or find the EMDR Directory that lists Certified EMDR Therapists — ComprehensiveTherapyApproach.com, please link here:
Directory of Certified EMDR Therapists
