The Braving Hope™™ Treatment Model identifies three overlapping injuries at the heart of sexual betrayal:
- the attachment injury
- the emotional and psychological injury
- the sexual injury
These three injuries weave together, creating an overlapping, intertwining kaleidoscope of betrayal that often touches the nerve center of all three experiences simultaneously.
Each partner experiences the impacts of sexual betrayal in different ways, but almost all partners report some degree of damage.
Healing the sexual injury you’ve sustained involves increasing self-awareness, confidence, and acceptance to allow you to engage more freely in the safe adventure of sex.
In her groundbreaking book, The Sexual Alarm System, Judith Leavitt puts words to the cultural and gender-based phenomenon experienced by women who are shaped by the reality that their sexuality puts them at risk for becoming sexual prey from girlhood on.
This sexual alarm system becomes hard-wired into the sexual experience of women (and sometimes the alarm system of men who have experienced sexual abuse or assault). And this hardwired alarm system impacts their sexuality in ways they may not even realize.
Sexual betrayal can hyper-activate an already active sexual alarm system, turning it chronically “on” and leaving betrayed partners feeling unable to find a way around their fear so they can reconnect with their sexual desire.
In this video, Michelle helps partners to understand and disarm their sexual alarm system.
