ABSTRACT
THE EXPERIENCE of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) fractionates SAM, as a boy, and SAM's life, as he knows it, into shards-facts short of meanings, truncated feelings, fragments of knowledge, splintered senses, demarcated time, and a boy divided against himself. On that ground, SAM's story of CSA, his truth, remains shattered, embedded, and incomplete. This chapter presents a treatment analogy. It has been employed primarily with adolescent males. Ironically, adult males as well as therapists have found it to be useful as well, particularly in terms of conceptualizing and demystifying the treatment process. Kip stated: "When DSS made me come to therapy, I told them I didn't want to do that touchy-feely kind of hug and cry and talk about feelings for an hour every damn week. They showed me this piece of paper from the therapist that talked about a kid named SAM and him being on an excavation. We were learning about that in science class. I thought to my self, 'If therapy is gonna be like that, I want to go."'Jake commented: "All I knew about therapy was what I saw on TV. It either looks dangerous, or seductive or too emotional or what not. Thinking about therapy in terms of an excavation-I could get into that. It helped me to understand what I was trying to do without all the psychobabble. I got the point of it all."
