Chapala Theological Seminary Counseling Situations

The Abused

"The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18). The abused need, first of all, to be believed, to be made safe, and to be told the truth: this was not their fault.

The Situation

Sooner or later someone will disclose to a pastor that they have been abused — a wife harmed by her husband, a child or teenager harmed by an adult, an adult carrying the wounds of abuse suffered long ago. The disclosure may come in a flood of tears or in a flat, halting voice; it may be the first time the person has ever told anyone. What the pastor does in that moment matters enormously, because the abused often carry not only the original wound but a crushing weight of shame, self-blame, and fear of not being believed — and a wrong response can deepen all three. So the pastor must settle several truths in his own heart before he ever sits with such a person. Abuse is always the fault of the abuser, never of the victim — no behavior, no failure, no provocation makes a person responsible for the wrong done to them. The abused are to be believed and taken seriously, not interrogated as suspects. And this is an area where a pastor, however loving, is not equipped to act alone: abuse involves real danger, often crime, and almost always the need for trained professionals and the proper authorities. The pastor's calling here is not to investigate, not to mediate between victim and abuser, and not to handle it quietly within the church, but to believe, to protect, to point to the God who is near the brokenhearted, and to bring in the help the situation requires.

The Ten Steps, Applied to the Abused

Step One · Stage 1

Determine the Time and the Place — Safety and Privacy

For the abused, the setting must above all be safe and unhurried. The person needs to know they will not be overheard, interrupted, or exposed, and that the abuser cannot walk in. The pastor honors the standing safeguard — never counseling someone of the opposite gender alone behind a closed door, but with a door open or a trusted, appropriate person present — and he weighs carefully who that person should be, ensuring it is someone safe for the victim and never anyone connected to the abuser. He gives unhurried time, because disclosures of abuse cannot be rushed; the person may need many minutes simply to feel safe enough to begin, and may tell only a fragment at first. And if the person is in present danger, the immediate question is not counseling at all but getting them to safety. The very first gift the pastor gives is a place where it is safe to speak.

Step Two · Stage 1

Listen — Believe, and Do Not Interrogate

This is the heart of the first response, and it must be done right. The pastor listens with belief and compassion, letting the person tell as much or as little as they are able, at their own pace, without pressing for details they are not ready to give. He does not interrogate, does not play detective, does not ask "are you sure?" or "what did you do to cause this?" — questions that retraumatize and that wrongly shift blame onto the victim. He receives what is said as true and serious. Crucially, he never promises secrecy; if a person begins, "I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone," the pastor gently does not make that promise, explaining with care that because he wants them safe, there may be people who need to help. (Gathering the detailed facts is the work of trained investigators and authorities, not the pastor — his listening is pastoral care, not investigation.) Above all, the abused person needs to hear, and to feel, that they have finally been believed.

Step Three · Stage 1

Clarify the Situation — Safety and the Truth About Blame

Clarifying here has two urgent priorities, and neither is the gathering of evidence. The first is safety: Is the person in present danger? Is a child still in contact with the abuser? Is there a threat of further harm? Where there is present danger or a child or vulnerable person is involved, this moves immediately toward protection and the proper authorities. The second is the truth about blame: the pastor gently but clearly names what the abused person most needs to hear and so rarely believes — this was not your fault. Victims almost always carry false guilt, replaying what they might have done differently, and the pastor lovingly and repeatedly places the responsibility where it belongs: wholly on the one who chose to do harm. He clarifies, too, what abuse is, for some have been so conditioned that they do not recognize what was done to them as wrong. The goal of this step is not a detailed account of the events but two clear truths established: you are not to blame, and we will get you safe.

Step Four · Stage 1

Investigate Previous Counseling — and the Need for Professionals

The pastor learns what help is already in place and what is urgently needed. Has the person told anyone before, and how were they received? Are they already working with a counselor, a doctor, an advocate, the authorities? Is there a safe support network around them? This step is, more than in any other situation, the recognition that the pastor must not work alone. Abuse calls for trained trauma professionals, for medical care where there is injury, for advocates who know the protective resources, and — where a child or vulnerable person has been harmed — for the civil authorities, who must be notified. The pastor's role is to be the faithful spiritual shepherd within a team of qualified helpers, not a substitute for them. To attempt to handle abuse alone, inside the church, is not only beyond his competence; it can endanger the victim and let harm continue. Knowing what help exists, and bringing in what does not yet, is itself a central act of care.

Step Five · Stage 2

Responsibility — Belongs to the Abuser, Never the Victim

In every other situation in this course, Step Five gently helps a person own their part. Here that pattern is deliberately broken, and the break must be absolute: the victim bears no responsibility whatsoever for the abuse. Responsibility lies entirely and only with the abuser, who alone chose to do harm. The pastor must never, by any word or implied question, suggest the victim caused, invited, or deserved what was done — not by their dress, their behavior, their failures, their staying, or anything else. This is the single most important thing to get right in this unit, because the abused person almost always already blames themselves, and a careless word can drive that false guilt deeper. So the pastor actively and repeatedly works to lift the false guilt the victim carries, naming clearly that the shame they feel belongs to the one who harmed them, not to them. The only "responsibility" rightly placed on the victim is the gentle, supported invitation to take the steps toward their own safety and healing — and even that is offered as care, never as a demand, and never as anything they failed to do before.

Step Six · Stage 2

Model the Role

The pastor models, by his own steady response, the safety and respect the abused person may have long been denied. He stays calm and does not react with shock, disgust, or anger that the victim might mistake as aimed at them. He is gentle, patient, and entirely trustworthy — keeping his word, respecting the person's pace, never pushing past their consent in conversation. In doing so he becomes, often, a corrective experience: a relationship with an authority figure or a person of trust that is safe, honoring, and without exploitation, perhaps the first the person has known in a long time. He also models, quietly, the character of God toward the wounded — not the harsh or absent figures who failed them, but One who is near to the brokenhearted, who does not despise them, and who is angered by what was done to them. The way the pastor conducts himself preaches, before any words, that this person is worthy of respect and safety.

Step Seven · Stage 2

Review the Alternatives — Toward Safety and Healing

The pastor helps the person see the real paths toward safety and healing — without ever pressuring a particular choice, since restoring a victim's sense of agency is itself part of healing. These paths include: getting to physical safety where there is danger, with the help of those who know how (advocates, shelters, authorities); the involvement of the proper authorities, especially where a child or vulnerable person has been harmed, which is not optional; professional trauma counseling, which the pastor warmly encourages; medical care where needed; and a safe, supportive community around the person. The pastor presents these as avenues of help and hope, walking the person through what each involves, and supports them in taking the steps — while recognizing that an adult victim makes their own decisions, and that pushing too hard can re-enact the control they have already suffered. The one place this yielding does not apply is the protection of a child or vulnerable person, which the law and conscience require regardless. The aim is a path out of danger and toward healing, taken with support and as much of the person's own choice as safety allows.

Step Eight · Stage 2

Explore the Outcomes

The pastor holds out honest hope: that with safety, support, professional help, and time, healing from even deep abuse is genuinely possible, and that the wound, though it has marked them, does not have to define or rule the rest of their life. He does not minimize — he never says "just get over it" or implies that healing will be quick or simple, for trauma runs deep and recovery is often long and not a straight line. But he refuses the lie abuse tells, that the person is permanently ruined or worthless. He helps them see that the path of safety and support, hard as it is, leads toward a real future — toward a restored sense of self, of dignity, of trust, and of the possibility of joy again — while the path of silence, isolation, and remaining in danger only prolongs the harm. And for the deepest wound abuse inflicts, the lie that one is dirty, worthless, or beyond love, he holds out the truth that no abuse can change a person's worth in the eyes of God, who calls them His own and treasures them.

Step Nine · Stage 2

Supply Information — God Is Near the Brokenhearted

When the person is ready — and the timing must follow their readiness, never be forced — the pastor brings the truths of Scripture that meet the deep wounds of abuse, gently and never as a demand. To the shame and sense of worthlessness, he brings the truth that God is near the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18), that the person is fearfully and wonderfully made and precious in His sight, and that nothing done to them can make them dirty or unloved before God. To the feeling of being abandoned, he brings the God who sees the afflicted — like Hagar, who named Him "the God who sees me" — and who does not look away. He assures them that God is not indifferent to what was done: He is a God of justice who hates the violence done to the vulnerable and will set all things right. Two cautions guide him here. He does not press forgiveness of the abuser; that is a long, deep work that belongs to the victim and to God in time, never to be demanded, and never to be confused with reconciliation or with a return to danger. And he does not offer Scripture as a shortcut around the hard, slow work of healing, but as the deep ground of hope beneath it — the assurance that they are held by a God who is near, who sees, who loves them still, and who is angered on their behalf.

Step Ten · Stage 2

Provide Closure

Healing from abuse is long work, so closure is never a single conversation but a sustained, faithful walking-alongside — with the pastor as one steady part of a larger team of help. He makes sure the concrete protective steps are actually in place, not merely discussed: that safety is secured, the proper authorities involved where required, the professional help connected. He follows up, staying present through a recovery that will have hard days and setbacks, so the person is not abandoned once the crisis passes — the very abandonment Tamar suffered. He keeps the person surrounded by safe, supportive community, while guarding them from any pressure to "move on," to reconcile, or to keep the peace at the cost of their safety. And he keeps pointing them, gently and over time, to the God who is near the brokenhearted — not with quick answers, but with the steady, patient presence that itself testifies that they have not been left alone, and that they are worthy of being cared for all the way through.

Theory Lens — the Psychoanalytic Insight, Used With Care

The Psychoanalytic tradition (rooted in Freud and those who followed) contributes one insight especially relevant to abuse: that deep wounds, particularly those suffered early or kept hidden, do not simply disappear when they are out of mind. They leave a lasting imprint, shaping a person's sense of self, their relationships, and their reactions in ways they may not consciously connect to the original harm. Buried pain has a way of surfacing — in anxiety, depression, difficulty trusting, shame, or patterns that repeat — and genuine healing usually requires that the hidden wound be brought, safely and with skilled help, into the light rather than left to fester in silence. This is real and useful wisdom for understanding the abused: it explains why "just forgetting it" does not work, why the effects can persist for years, and why professional trauma care matters. It also rhymes with a biblical instinct — that what is hidden in darkness needs to be brought into the light to be healed, and that God desires "truth in the inward being."

The biblical caution. Yet the pastor must use this insight carefully and within firm limits. First, a matter of competence: understanding that buried trauma surfaces is not the same as being trained to treat it. Probing for buried memories, attempting depth work, or trying to excavate a person's past is the skilled and sometimes risky work of trained trauma professionals — done badly it can retraumatize or even generate false memories — and it is precisely not something the pastor should attempt. His role is to recognize that such wounds are real and lasting, and therefore to refer, not to dig. Second, a matter of truth: the psychoanalytic frame can drift toward treating the person mainly as the sum of their past determining their present, but the gospel insists they are more than what was done to them — a person made in God's image, of unchangeable worth, and capable, by grace, of real healing and a genuinely new future. And it can speak of guilt and shame only as feelings to be managed, where the gospel can do what no therapy can: lift the false shame that never belonged to the victim, and assure them they are clean, beloved, and held. So the pastor takes the genuine insight — hidden wounds need light and skilled care — and sets it within the larger truth that the abused person is precious to God, not defined by their wound, and bound for healing. The insight informs his understanding; it does not become his toolkit. For the work itself, he refers.

The short-answer questions are for your own reflection: write your answer, then press Reveal model answer to compare. Unit completion is based on the multiple-choice questions.