Question

A 35-year-old woman who is a survivor of childhood abuse has been meeting with a social worker for individual therapy. More recently, the client has started to become distressed while discussing the details of the abuse. During the next session, she says that she thinks the abuse was a dream and actually never happened . What is the MOST likely reason for this behavior?

A. The client has been contacted by the abuser and is scared.
B. The client is using avoidance to manage anxiety brought up by discussing the abuse.
C. The client is unconsciously using suppression.
D. The client fabricated the story and now feels guilty as a result.

Answer 1

The most likely reason the woman claims the abuse was a dream is that she is using avoidance as a defense mechanism to manage the anxiety caused by discussing her childhood abuse.

Step-by-step explanation:

The most likely reason for a 35-year-old woman, who is a survivor of childhood abuse, to claim that the abuse was a dream and actually never happened, is B. the client is using avoidance to manage anxiety brought up by discussing the abuse. This behavior can be understood as a psychological defense mechanism where the distress associated with the memories of abuse leads the person to attempt to distance themselves from the experience. This is consistent with the concept of repression, where anxiety-causing memories are blocked from consciousness to protect the individual from psychological distress. The phenomenon where traumatic memories are not recalled, or are inaccurately remembered, is well-documented in the literature regarding childhood abuse survivors.