It took me awhile to open Healing after Sexual Abuse: A Latter-day Saint Perspective after it arrived in the mail, and not just because of my busy schedule! I wasn’t sure if I was up for hearing the heavy, tragic stories of sexual abuse survivors who I didn’t know. [1] However, while authors Shirley Washenko and Sage Williams, MSc, RN squarely faced the seriousness of sexual abuse, this book is not graphic. The authors and the survivors they quote focus squarely on living after sexual abuse, and on hope of healing through Jesus Christ. In fact, one of the treasures included in its pages is the Afterword, which the authors used to include a series of courageous letters from survivors of sexual abuse to encourage other survivors and testify of Christ.
This focus makes the book read like a hand outstretched, not like an academic study. While the authors do include some relevant statistics and facts to give context to survivors’ experiences, and outline the importance of justice and holding perpetrators accountable and telling the truth, the three most unique contributions of this book, in my opinion, included comments on 1) what it means to “heal from abuse”, 2) what is anger and what purpose does it serve, 3) what forgiveness really means and how that concept sometimes gets really twisted up in our minds, and 4) how Church leaders can better support survivors of sexual abuse.
Washenko and Williams take remarkable pains to focus the book on the words of survivors, which brought up thoughts and ideas that I’d never thought of as well as solutions that are particularly actionable. For example, one survivor mentioned it was confusing to think about “healing from abuse” because it’s not a prescribed process, like there is when you cut your skin. The survivor asked “how can you heal from abuse?” When the abuse is no longer be occurring, justice may or may not have been carried out, but there’s no longer a threat, there are no more bruises, how do you heal? I thought it was a profound question, and the survivor shared a really great and actionable answer: abuse harms your ability to connect in a healthy and whole way with yourself, God, and other people. So, the way to heal is to connect more often and in healthier ways with yourself, God, and other people. The survivor said that building connections, the wounds on their mind and heart and soul have started to heal. I thought this was remarkably insightful, because physical damage from sexual abuse might heal more quickly than the emotional damage, and that can leave survivors feeling unsure how to continue to heal. I personally think this is incredible advice for anyone who has experienced trauma (emotional, physical, sexual, etc.) in any way at the hands of another person.
One concept that is challenging for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and maybe religious folk in general, is anger. Washenko and Williams clearly parse the difference between the emotion and the action taken in response to it. They state, “our feelings of anger are a powerful rejection of the way we were and perhaps still are being treated, and these feelings communicate that what we have experienced is unequivocally wrong.” They point out that the Savior is often recorded as feeling anger, even “fierce anger” but even as he did not suppress his anger, the actions he took in response were not out of control or destructive. The authors say that “we often judge the emotion of anger as wrong because we associate it with people’s loss of control, irrational behavior, or destructive reactions to the feeling—lashing out and vengeance. But those are actually only reactions to anger, not the feeling of anger itself.” They call on us to recognize and use our feelings of anger to identify when something is wrong, and then to control our response. For example, we would rather not be angry with our neighbor, but if our neighbor harms our child, we will feel angry because it is wrong to harm a child. But our anger must not, in turn, lead us to attack our neighbor. Instead, we must act to protect the child and other children from harm, and to help our neighbor repent by speaking the truth to people with authority. Reporting and protecting are not the same as attacking, even if the consequences are uncomfortable for our neighbor.
Forgiveness is powerful, but often misunderstood. The Savior says in Doctrine and Covenants 64:10 “of you it is required to forgive all men.” At face value this seems like an incredibly charged commandment for people who have been abused, especially if abused by someone divinely appointed to care for them. However, Healing after Sexual Abuse really digs into what misconceptions we might have around this topic, like the old adage “forgive and forget.” The authors started by sharing a survivor’s feelings around Elder Neil L. Anderson’s words about what forgiveness is not in his book The Divine Gift of Forgiveness (2019): “Forgiveness is not excusing accountability or failing to protect ourselves, our families, and other innocent victims. Forgiveness is not continuing in a relationship with someone who is not trustworthy. Forgiveness is not dismissing the hurt or disgust we feel because of the actions of others. Forgiveness is not forgetting but remembering in peace.” This is so powerful for all of us, and especially for those who have been so incredibly harmed. The authors then meander through what forgiveness is and isn’t, leaving a lot of space for the reader to ponder and add their own perspectives and insights. They remind us that sexual abuse is not usually inflicted by a stranger, but by family members, friends, or teachers. This often means that after sexual abuse, pain and anger and mistrust are mixed up with love and the desire for stability, which complicates forgiveness. They also note that this close relationship between the abused and abuser often means that their support systems are, if not the same, very similar. Because of this, family members, leaders, and the community must adjust to believe that forgiveness on the part of the survivor must include holding the perpetrator accountable and making sure further harm does not occur.
I appreciated the perspectives and emotion the authors and survivors brought to this book. Healing after Sexual Abuse is incredibly relevant, because, for me and many others, talking about sexual abuse and its ripple effects in our families and society is uncomfortable not least because it is so widespread, and, as the authors, point out, because sexual abuse so often is perpetuated by those within our family or even our Church community. Sexual abuse by people we trust is not new, it hasn’t gone away, and it is a threat to our families and faith, especially if ignored or hushed up. In the last year, I’ve had conversations with women in their 70s and women in their 20s who discuss having left the church or gotten divorced due to the sexual abuse inflicted upon them, their sons, and their daughters by members of the Church or their priesthood ordained husbands or fathers.
Other valuable contributions of this book are the suggestions for how the Church and local leaders can adjust to support survivors included in this book, including:
- “upholding the truth…includ[ing] but is not limited to referring perpetrators to civil and religious authorities when possible” even as they are helping the perpetrators repent and turn to Christ,
- “connecting [survivors] to resources to help support healing (including professional services and any support we may need to access those services,” and
- “work to put systems in place to help Church worship feel safe and supportive for survivors. Especially in circumstances where the perpetrator is also a member of the ward or branch, bishops and branch presidents can take action to protect both the survivor and others in their community from further harm.”
In the recent past, Church leadership has taken steps to eliminate opportunities for sexual abuse (e.g., adding windows to classroom doors, increasing primary teachers to two per class, and instituting required safety training for leaders and teachers of children and youth), but there are still areas where we can improve our diligence. For example, I think it would be wise to consider the following:
- instruct that female leadership make up at least 1/3 of membership council participants;
- permit that women’s Church records be viewable only by her Relief Society president or ministering sisters especially in cases of allegations of abuse within the ward, stake, or city; call women as ward mission leaders if sister missionaries are assigned to a ward;
- invite parents of children and youth to take the Protecting Children and Youth Training so they know what to expect of leaders;
- and teach the youth that they can bring another leader or a parent to a meeting with a bishopric member. [2]
My family is still facing ongoing pain, challenges, conflict, and division because of sexual abuse perpetrated over 50 years ago. My guess is the perpetrators were harmed by other abusers in their families. I don’t think much healing has started to occur until the last 5 years. Even so, it is slow going, with a lot of damage left in its wake and a lot of resistance to admitting the abuse happened or mattered. I can add my witness to Washenko’s and Williams’ that pretending abuse didn’t happen with the intent to protect the perpetrator (in my family’s case, included an older brother, an uncle, and a father) added to the harm and created additional opportunities for abuse. So, while there is no magic healing spell for a survivor of sexual abuse, this book is a gentle place to start, an oasis in a world that seems to so quickly tires of hearing and caring how many women and men have been sexually abused. And it’s an honest place to start for leaders who want to know better how to heal sorrows that the eye can’t see.
NOTES:
[1] When I first opened the book, I started mentally counted the number of people in my family across generations who have been sexually abused and stopped at 11 just among the living. I’m not sure if that’s normal or extreme, but it’s my family’s reality. Out of the 11, only two of those people were abused by someone outside the family. [Back to manuscript].
[2] My best (even most serious) meetings as a youth with my bishop occurred out on the lawn where people could see us but not hear us. Obviously weather could affect this, but it helped me feel safe physically and socially. [Back to manuscript].
Full Citation for this Article: Bell, Emilee Pugh (2025) "Book Review: Healing After Sexual Abuse: A Latter-day Saint Perspective by Shirley Washenko and Sage Williams, MSc, RN," SquareTwo, Vol. 18 No. 3 (Fall 2025), http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleBellWashenkoReview.html, accessed <give access date>.
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