ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon the clinical work of The Woman's Service, a specialist psychotherapy service for women survivors of child sexual abuse. It utilises the art work of therapists in their own supervision, exploring their perspectives on the work they were doing with survivors. The three case studies illustrate the ways in which art can be used by therapists making sense of and processing traumatic materials from therapy sessions. The content and process of the artworks explores how child sexual abuse gets under the skin of the therapist, but rather than only seeing this in terms of vicarious trauma, it makes the case for the importance of this to happen if there is a genuine bearing witness to the traumatic events. In framing this work in the context of a longer-term specialist psychotherapy service, the chapter makes a strong argument for tailored and ongoing therapeutic support for adult survivors.
