Healing harm

The morning after Liverpool playwright Jimmy McGovern’s Unforgivable aired on the BBC, consultant clinical psychologist Dr Lisa Wright had a call from a friend – it was being talked about at her local hair salon.

The 90 minute drama shows the Mitchell family struggling in the aftermath of an act of sexual abuse on young teenager Tom by his uncle Joe. The complexities of a tragic situation grow with the revelation that Joe himself was abused as a child.

Lisa had written to McGovern about Mersey Care’s Forensic Psychology Service, the country’s only NHS service offering psychological therapies to prevent violent or sexual crimes. He later told the BBC he’d felt ‘compelled’ to dramatise a story Lisa shared when they met, of a man who had only realised his own abuse during therapy.

Lisa advised scriptwriters using her experience of working with people who are sexually attracted to children and desperately want to change. Most, but not all, have been abused themselves as children.

She feels drama can simplify complex issues,

“It can explain and help inform opinion on topics we’d rather not think about. Child sexual abuse happens, we can’t ignore it.”

In Unforgivable, Joe undergoes Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), a therapy that helps process distressing memories of trauma. Through the therapy Joe recognises his own abuse by his football coach.

Lisa explains, “Childhood memories affect how we think as adults. If, as a child, you’re told by someone you trust that what they are doing to you is because they care, those memories influence how you think, feel and behave as an adult.

“Like many people who are sexually attracted to children, Joe doesn’t view what happened to him as abuse. As a child he made sense of it by seeing it as consent with someone he looked up to. It’s only during therapy he begins to see the true picture.

“It helps him see what happened in a more realistic way. He thinks, ‘This wasn’t love or kindness. I was just a child - I didn’t understand. I didn’t want it.’”

Neither Lisa nor Jimmy McGovern sought sympathy or forgiveness for fictional or real perpetrators; rather to raise awareness of the topic – and crucially to prevent victims becoming abusers.

Lisa is clear that not everyone wants to change. But for those who do, the approach is highly successful.

“For Joe and people like him, therapy helps them stop associating the abuse with positive or sexual feelings. They become more emotionally connected to the truth of what has happened to them and so more deeply remorseful about what they have done, or could do, to others.”

McGovern told the BBC he believes people will learn from watching Unforgivable. He said, “Even though we’re talking about child abusers, I still think there’s a need for compassion. Caution yes, punishment yes, justice yes … but alongside all that, an element of compassion.”

For Lisa it’s about reducing future offending. “If we don’t change how abusers think and behave, there’s a good chance they’ll come out of prison and offend again. Above everything else our aim is fewer victims.”

Unforgivable starring Bobby Schofield, Anna Maxwell Martin, Anna Friel and David Threlfall, is available on BBC iPlayer.

Children can be sexually abused in many different ways, including online and the more we all understand about child sexual abuse, the better we can protect them. Abusers come from all walks of life and often children are abused by someone they know and trust.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools can now be used to create lifelike images of almost anything, including child sexual abuse. It is illegal to create, view or share any images of child sexual abuse, even if they have been artificially created.