© British Association of Social Workers
Moving beyond Litigation and Positivism: Another Approach to Accusations of Sexual Abuse
Malcolm Cowburn is Lecturer in Probation and Social Policy at the University of Sheffield. He has worked extensively with sex offenders and victim-survivors of sexual abuse. He is currently engaged in research and consultancy work on working with sex offenders. He has also published in this area.
Lena Dominelli is Professor of Social Work at the University of Southampton. She has worked with victim-survivors of child sexual abuse and sex offenders in the past. She has also written extensively on the subject, including the book Gender, Sex Offenders and Probation Practice (Novata Press, 1991).
Correspondence to Professor Lena Dominelli, Department of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 IBJ.
Summary
The Current polarized debated about false memory and reclaimed memory with regard to child sexual abuse have trivialized the significance of experimental knowledge and contributed to the silencing of the voice of the victim-survivor. They have also enabled the alleged abuser to avoid confronting those elements of his behaviour which are problematic for others and discouraged preventative approaches by locking the protagonists into adversarial positions. We argue that this need not be the case if therapeutic relationships can operate outside of court driven proceedings and be aimed at responding to the needs of the victim-survivor to have their experience of abuse validated and of the alleged abuser to work on non-abusive ways of relating to others.