Great. You took the step to look for help. You are not alone. It isn’t easy to ask for help, especially for men. Or maybe you’ve sought help before and the result was less than helpful.

I know there is a lot of traffic to this site but not as many phone calls. Please don’t suffer in silence. Contact me at 1-604-861-7890 or gmkogan@gmail.com

It’s very common for people abused by their own mothers to lose friends and family members when they disclose–tell them about the abuse. Most people had loving mothers and can’t imagine that a mother could commit a sexual crime against their own child.  This is true even for therapists who might have been taught that women don’t abuse sexually without a man instructing them or that mothers never sexually assualt their children, or that if you don’t have a penis you can’t assault someone,

No one knows why adults can have sexual attraction to children. We do know that sexual compulsion is a very powerful force.

Holding onto a secret like that can harm our bodies. Call 604-861-7890

There is an unwritten rule against getting angry at a mother. People abused sexually are often at war with their own emotions. The mother is everything in a child’s world. The moment the child was put in the position of gratifying the woman, maternity was gone.

Maternal incest almost always damages the person’s sex life. The appearance and sounds of sexual ecstasy may be extremely triggering.  The person, on the other hand, may become adept at gratifying women but may completely submerge their own needs.

A woman or a man abused sexually by their mother may be afraid to have a child because of the absolutely wrong idea that people abuse because they have been abused.

Call me right now for a free consultation 604-861-7890. If it’s the weekend I will get back to you during the week.

(Therapists please see the section below.)

If you were sexually abused by a female family caregiver – your mother, step-mother or foster mother – I offer support, therapy, information and consultation. Abuse means that the actions of the mother caused harm.*

WHAT HELP IS AVAILABLE?

I can provide short- or long-term support and consultation to anyone anywhere via Tele-Health.  If you have a therapist who feels out of depth I can help that therapist learn more about this issue.

I am also ordained as a spiritual healing guide and can help on a spiritual level as well as in the role of a therapist. I can help find sources of healing that are within us all,

I will work on a sliding scale.

I would love to help  your therapist do a better job, A consultation or two might be enough.

Far more men abuse children than women. But women are human and can also have out-of-control or illegal behaviours.

FOR THERAPISTS 

No therapist, including me, should underestimate the impact of secondary trauma. Call for a free brief discussion and book a consultation.

I  was taught several untruths: that women only abuse children if coerced by a man, that people imagine that they were abuse sexually as an Oedipal wish fulfillment, that sexual abuse is more about power than actual sexual gratification, and, worst of all, that women never abuse their own children.

Men in particular very often have very negative stories about prior attempts to get help. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because therapists experience high degrees of secondary trauma as the men’s stories emerge.

Maternal incest shakes us at foundational levels: Mothers acting in ways that seem unthinkable.

I’m slowly writing a book for therapists and survivors but in the meantime one or two consultations should be the difference between providing a needed service and losing a client. You have to have a place to take this traumatic material.

Contact me at 1-604-861-7890 or gmkogan@gmail.com

SERVICES AND OTHER INFORMATION

Services will be provided through telehealth (Skype, Zoom, etc.), unless you happen to live near my practice here on the Sunshine Coast, British Columbia. Groups are a wonderful way to heal. As long as there are at least six people willing to attend a group, I will host a healing group on line or in person.

You are worthy of love. You are worthy of friendship, marriage, and children if that’s what you desire. You are worthy of having a joyful and life-affirming sex life. You are not alone.

It is often very difficult for people abused by their mothers to find help. Here are some things that people have encountered when looking for help:

• having had a bad experience telling someone – See Disclosure section below
• being ghosted: not having calls or messages returned after telling a professional or their support staff about the maternal abuse
• being disbelieved:  told that women don’t sexually abuse children, unless forced to by a man, or that mothers don’t abuse their own children
• being suspected of being an abuser yourself simply because you were abused. I know of one man who was referred to a sexual offenders group when he called to find treatment for his own victimization. There is simply no evidence that being abused predisposes anyone to any criminal behaviour (the exception may occur if someone believed that their own abuse was a good thing.)
• being drawn out by a counselor or intake worker for titillation sake: helpers may ask for details of the abuse to satisfy their own curiosity. No one needs the details until it’s good for you to talk about them.

Here are some things that make it hard to ask for help in the first place:

• feeling shame at what happened: you were a child and not in a position to consent
• feeling shame if your body responded to the touch. Some children may respond with erections, vaginal lubrication, orgasm and other sexual responses. Abusers often use these involuntary responses to make the child think they are complicit in the abuse. Some children may return to the abuser because they want the attention and, for some, because they enjoyed the experience (we are sexual beings and may respond sexually even at a young age.) None of the above excuses the adult from breaking the law
• the mother may have threatened consequences for telling someone about the abuse. These fears may linger into adulthood
• people often choose not to remember these experiences, not to replay those memories
• sometimes children are pushed into forgiving the abuser. Children really don’t  understand the ways in which the abuse has harmed them.  At minimum abuse stops the young adult or older teen from having a normal introduction to sex with its faltering explorations. You may end up with angry feelings and nowhere to put them. Those feelings often get turned against yourself or against others who did no harm
• some people may minimize the experience because it didn’t happen often, or because they included one sex act and didn’t include another sex act. It’s important, at minimum, to talk it out with a professional
• the mother may have told you that she was teaching you important lessons by sexually involving you. This is usually a ploy to manipulate you into compliance and silence.
• fear of upsetting the family. All therapy is confidential unless there is a child or adult at risk. It is true that if the therapist is told that the offender is still abusing children they would have to alert authorities.

Make no mistake, sexual contact with a minor child is illegal. There is no circumstances that change that fact. Every person has the right to seek legal recourse.

Maternal sexual abuse can damage your ability to form relationships, your ability to bond. It often leads to a deep sense of worthlessness. The person who is supposed to love you unconditionally actually used you for their own gratification. It may make it hard to enjoy your body or enjoy a full and life-affirming sex life.

 CRISIS OF DISCLOSURE

If you told someone as a child or an adult and were not supported, believed and loved you may need help recovering from the disclosure itself. Police do not all have the training to respond sensitively.

Sometimes the response is disbelief, sometimes anger.

Sometimes a child who tells a teacher or counselor about being abused sexually is taken out of the family (this practice is less and less frequent these days) at least while the abuse is investigated. That child may feel they are being punished for the abuse, especially if they are not placed with a trusted and trustworthy family member.

A disclosure can put a relative into a loyalty bind. where they love both the abuser and the person abused. It takes a lot of wisdom to be able to both hold the abuser responsible and still love and support them.

SEXUAL ABUSERS

This service is NOT for anyone who has harmed a child or sexual abused or assaulted an adult.  A sex abuse offender is best helped at a multi-disciplinary social services agency and not in a private therapy practice. There are specialized treatment services, as well as important legal consequences, for people who have harmed a child.

*Some people believe that their childhood sexual experiences were positive for them. I don’t challenge that although I would say that people who say that may not be aware of damage.