Self-efficacy and Child Sexual Abuse
Jun 25
For Multiples, cognitive dissonance conflicts are especially traumatizing, most often because of early sexual abuse and neglect at developmental ages, approximately before five years.
With "little to no" after-support, The person abused person's had choices stripped away by her abuser, like dirty clothes.
The act of sexual abuse eradicated the child's decision-making abilities and made them powerless. In a sense, the actions "blew their minds," like forcing them into a state of shock consistently because the acts of abuse were likely to have been repetitive.
We find that the dominant, familiar force of abuse pushed against the helpless victim must be obscene and destructive. Familiar because often, the perpetrator is a close family member who ought to have provided trust in their relationship.
Many writers support cognitive dissonance and trauma psychology that provide for the power of pain, primarily when used against a distinct individual.
Festinger (1957) started the theory of cognitive dissonance. He explained that cognitive dissonance is discomfort when one is stuck or unmotivated between beliefs, values, and behavior and cannot return to life's consistency.
The sense of being able to access help in "figuring things out" is lost. To the individual, it feels affectively, cognitively, and physiologically like an aching pain that cannot be soothed or self-controlled.
The infant/child may quit the belief that others external to themselves will aid or keep them safe.
Multiples, through systems within brain biology, may need to understand that their help might come from another part of their brain created to deal with their lives.
There are two separate directions of synapse flow. One flow is for the person abused, and the other flows for the part of the system that can adapt to the current situation when not being abused directly.
Multiples are adept at spontaneously adapting. The fight to find one another within a family system may come later in life, but it will most likely take a lifetime. Exchanges must be aligned to live in the environment.
Concerning the victim, consistency is where basic needs and goals are met/united.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (1943) teaches that physiological and safety needs must come first. These are both conflicted before, during, and after sexual abuse and neglect.
I believe in the specific case of sexual abuse and neglect, trauma is at the heart of the issue. Cognitive dissonance is a slice of the differences between alters/parts, among other topics.
"Dissonance source" develops from "making decisions that conflict with existing beliefs or values" (Festinger, 1957).
One part of the self makes one set of decisions or lacks decision-making abilities, and the other could eventually live a separate set of rules that might be genetically safer. Between the two parts, or more, lie countless cognitive dissonance conflicts and struggles.
Finding other parts(s) of insights that are consistent and relevant to the person, relationship, and work/play would benefit them.
References
Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50_(4), 370-396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346