"For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds"

Please note that the following are reflections and are not intended to be taken as legal advice (we are not attorneys) or as a substitute for therapy.

Survivors report that engaging with an internal church investigation process has been deeply harmful and has hindered healing or caused additional injury, including suicidality.

For the reasons above, it is not recommended for survivors of clergy abuse to engage with a church attorney seeking to investigate the abuse.
- Instead, one can consider seeking legal counsel with a trauma informed attorney and have one's own attorney provide information to a church administration. The aim in this is not to be "litigious", but rather to protect one's own mental and spiritual health. If approached alone:
  - an internal church investigation process may involve answering questions without one's own counsel; in other words, "interrogation without counsel".
  - There is no assurance that the church attorney has attended trainings related to abuse dynamics or that he or she understands the trauma of clergy-perpetrated abuse.
  - The questions may be invasive or lead to an increase in symptoms for the survivor, with no guarantee of aid from the church administration in help for healing or relief.
  - In fact, having an offender then continue in ministry can be even more harmful after sharing openly what one has experienced.
  - Being "dropped" within a church investigation is not a rare occurrence for survivors, rather, survivors report having fully disclosed traumatic memories with no follow up or care provided.
  - Some survivors have reported tactics of a church agent appearing to be kind and empathetic, only to find that they were then threatened with legal action while making a report or following up on a report.
  - Some survivors report being approached by priests investigating allegations of abuse who were in fact also attorneys. These priests did not disclose their attorney status.
  - Since survivors have reported giving information and then experiencing stonewalling or not provided with even the courtesy of an investigation update, it is highly recommended not to engage in this dynamic with any church administration.

We believe that any organization investigating sexual abuse by a leader should utilize independent third-party investigations, with trauma informed investigators who are truly impartial. There are no Orthodox churches that regularly and exclusively utilize this model of accessing a third-party independent investigation. Instead, a third-party reporting website may be used that then funnels the information back to the church administration. This is not a third-party investigation.

Healing is easier after removal from the noxious environment: the community in which the abuse happened.

Clergy abuse does not take place within a vacuum, rather, it is part of a system. It is often much easier within a system or community to blame one person: the victim. Healing is quicker when one mutes harmful voices and steps out of the communities where deep harm has been experienced. This includes interacting with those within the community who have remained committed to misunderstanding clergy abuse. There is an incredible amount of research available on power dynamics and the misuse of authority, so for people to misunderstand this issue over time is a deliberate, self-protective choice to remain uneducated.

Clergy abuse may cause complex trauma for a survivor because the abuse is within the context of what should have been (or what may have at one point been viewed as) a healing relationship. Any therapeutic modality should address complex trauma. Survivors report that cognitive behavioral therapy is not an appropriate modality for this kind of complex trauma, while a body-based, somatic approach may bring relief from symptoms. Some therapeutic interventions that may be helpful include:

Brainspotting
Somatic movement practices
Somatic experiencing
Internal Family Systems
EMDR
Narrative story work, or properly understanding the story of harm and making sense of the pieces through writing or sharing with a trusted person who has earned the right to hear one's story
Breathwork