2 of 4

That night, the pastor started talking about Balaam's ass. And I'm thinking, "Oh my goodness. What kind of religion have I gotten myself into that Balaam's ass is talking to him?" And about halfway in the sermon he changed to Balaam's donkey. Oh, it was such a relief. It was at this point I realized that all we're dealing with is the possibility that God could use animals and not body parts.

So from that point there was at least some movement and some sense of reading, thinking, talking with other believers.

Why did you end up at seminary, though? Was it the record collection again?

No, it was Tremper, though. Six weeks before we graduated, he asked me what I was doing after graduation. It was the '70s. I had never thought about what we were going to do. So he said, "Well, why don't you go to seminary with me? You can think about God, study a little bit, you know, do whatever you want to do."

So we got an application, and it had all these questions I had no idea what to do with. "Personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I had no idea what it was talking about. I tried to fill it out. Tremper, laughing in the background, finally said, "Let me fill it out for you." So the two of us ended up going. And it was really the first year in seminary when the gospel simply grabbed me.

Your main area of writing now is in the issue of healing for sexual abuse. How did that issue become your niche?

I remember the day very well. A woman, whom I had worked with for maybe five or six sessions, looked me in the eye, out of the blue, and said, "Do you know anything about sexual abuse?"

I was a psychologist, went through three years of seminary, two years of a master's program, six years of a Ph.D. program, all excellent programs, 11 to 12 years of graduate education—not a single stinking minute on the issues of abuse.

And I looked at her and I said, "No, I don't know much." And she said, "I know you don't. And if you're willing to work with me, I'll teach you everything I know." And that was a journey that God has not graciously let me leave and that has opened the door to things that I would never have thought I had the privilege to enter.

How widespread is this issue truly in American life and society?

It's pervasive. If it were an issue of the common cold, we would see it as a tragedy and it would be at the very front of Newsweek every week. With men, we're probably looking at at least one out of four. That's a very conservative figure. My guess is we're looking at at least 30 to 33 percent having been abused. If you look at women, the figures are even higher: 38 to 40 percent, again a conservative figure.

How can this be so common?

Well, it deadens something in the human heart. It kills a sense of humanity. It allows you to be even more abused and often allows you to do harm to others, even if it's not sexual abuse. There's a certain detachment, often technically called dissociation, a deadness inside the heart that separates from the reality of the pain.

Can people be healed once they've experienced it?

Oh, it's the hard labor. Will you name it first? Will you have the courage to name you have abuse? And that abuse, even if it was one time, one minute, has an effect in your heart, today, 30 or 40 years later.

About a year and a half after [this woman asked me that question,] I started teaching the material I was learning from her. A good friend of mine came to one of the first seminars, and after it was over said to me, "Do you have any history of abuse in your life?"

next page... |  2 of 4

share this page

June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47