Read theJohn Scenario

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Construct a brief narrative to show that you understand the Sex Abuse Cycle and can apply it to a situation. You will need to identify the precipitating phase (including the events which occurred to lead John to the distorted thinking), the compensatory phase and the integration phase. This brief assignment will be part of your participation grade.

Scenario : SCENARIO: JOHN John is 17 years old. He lives with his mom and stepfather. Also living in the home are his eight year-old-half-sister, Mary, and his six-year-old half brother, Mike. When he was about nine, John's parents divorced. He rarely sees his biological father. He has memories of his real Dad drinking a lot and sometimes hitting his mother and his brothers. After his parents divorced, his mother moved the family several times, and since her remarriage, the family has lived several different places. Perhaps because of this, John is a loner kind of kid. He has a couple casual buddies and a girlfriend, whom he sees mostly at school. When he was younger, he stayed at home afternoons and evenings while his mother worked. His older brother baby-sat for him. Mom was easy going with few rules or demands of the boys. After his brothers left home, he kept the habit of hanging around the house. In a way his mother is his best buddy. She talks with him a lot and they do shopping and other things together. She has always let him do most of the things he wants to do. John often feels life isn't fair. Lately things have been especially rough. John resents his mother making him baby-sit his younger siblings. Never a very good student, he is getting into trouble at school. His latest girlfriend just broke up with him. He feels especially restricted by the responsibility of taking care of his brother and sister. He is angry with the school and hurt by his girlfriend dumping him. He thinks, "Things never go good for me. No one cares about me. I don't count." "I might as well give up. I can never do things right, I'm a real loser." Never good at speaking up to his mother or expressing his feelings, John has started going to his room at night, where instead of doing his schoolwork, he draws pictures of army tanks and missiles while listening to music with his headphones. When one of his friends calls, he says he can't talk. (John is attempting to get control of his feelings about himself and his life through avoidance and isolation.)

Over time, John becomes increasingly resentful about how things are going in his life. He isn't doing well at school. He blames his teachers. He thinks his mother was deliberately making things hard for him by insisting he baby-sit and do some housework after school. John begins to do little things to annoy his mother, like "forgetting" to give her phone messages. He teases her by hiding things she needs like bills or her checkbook. After she gets upset, he gives them to her. John tells himself that he is getting back at Mom for being so hard on him. When John was about six or seven, he fell into a pattern of masturbating when his parents would fight or if his Dad yelled at him. It would take away the bad feelings. By the time he entered his teens, he was masturbating two or three times a day. Sometimes he would have fleeting images of his sister bathing. Now, when he masturbates, sometimes he will think about her and about touching her between the legs. In the last couple of years, John found he enjoyed touching her breast area and buttocks. He did this under the guise of wrestling. One night while she was sleeping, he put his hand into her pajamas and felt her genital area. Now John is wondering what it would be like to put his finger into her vagina. He thought about how he might go about doing this. One night as they were sitting on the sofa close together, he told her he wanted to play a special touching game. In time, this led to digital penetration. When, his sister complained he hurt her, he would give her an extra dessert. He let her stay up late with him whenever he molested her. Sometimes he takes her to movies or to the mall. He tells himself she likes it because she wants to sit by him and asks for extra treats. After he molested Mary, John would have some feelings and thoughts that were uncomfortable. He dismisses these, telling himself that he didn't really ever hurt Mary. She likes him to take care of her and touch her. He is her favorite in the family. She even asks to have him baby-sit her or take her places.