Sex Therapy/First Day
I arrived at the clinic the day of the appointment about ten minutes early for my four pm time. Surely I was in the wrong spot for a Yale clinic; an old warehouse building on what many would consider the wrong side of the railroad tracks near Union Station. The neighborhood is a mixed collection of old houses and warehouses. It Isn’t the worst neighborhood around, but it is certainly firmly in the bars on the windows and grass growing from every crack in the sidewalk phase of decline. I considered turning around but they had sent clear directions including a diagram of where to park along with a card to get me into the gated parking lot. The card worked so I must be in the right spot. The inside is a different world from the neighborhood outside, entirely new complete with that new carpet smell. It reminded me of an upscale pediatricians office, except for the lack of a waiting area. Instead I found myself in a small entrance area with the reception desk populated by an attractive college age women:
“Hi Mr. Nelson, glad you found us I know we are in a odd place” she greeted me with a cheery smile
“I guess being away from campus maintains privacy and you seem to have secured the place well” I responded surprised she knew my name. “I now I’m a bit early I haven’t been in this area before” I continued
“Not a problem the doctor is ready, we’ve all been excited for you to come so we can officially kick this off” she said, grabbing a file folder as she stood up.
“You mean I’m the first person you have signed up?”
“Yes, the first adult at least, it's been hard getting them through the screening process, I’m sure the Dr can explain more, I deal more with recruitment of the girls and parents' ' she answered as she walked down a hallway motioning for me to follow.
She knocked on a door then swiftly entered, following her in I found Dr. Britnall on the phone at a large desk she motioned to a chair across the desk from her as she grabbed the file from the receptionist who closed the door as she scurried out.
“...yes that is great news, I’ll come by the group about 5 minutes before you finish Bruce is here now so I have to go” I overheard her say then hung up.
“We are so excited to have you here Bruce, you may know I’m the director of the study Laura. Is it ok if we use first names? I get tired of being called doctor.” She said, looking at me as she opened the file up.
“Certainly, I agree, when the receptionist called me Mr. Nelson I almost didn’t know who she was talking to”
“She is a great undergrad researcher but I haven’t succeeded in getting her to stop calling me Doctor, let me know if you find the secret. Anyway as I said we are glad you are here, it's been more difficult than I expected to recruit fully qualified adults for the study, the opposite in the case of the children leading to a bit of an imbalance. You are actually the first adult we are onboarding so we are excited to kick things off and I'm eager to get down to business. Did you get a chance to review the book we sent with your induction packet?” She said conveying a sense of urgency with the pace of her speech
“Yes, I’ve read it. It was pretty through for something you must of written quickly for the study”
“It was quite a task, I’m glad you read the whole thing then I can make this quick.”
“I just want to be certain we have a understanding on the most important points of your role” Laura said holding up her fingers to enumerate the list as she continued
“First, all sexual contact must be consensual; you cannot force a girl you are working with to do anything, and should avoid manipulation. If you feel like a girl’s progress is being held back by resistance to moving forward. You can contact me so we can work out a plan. That being said I don’t expect that will be a common issue for this study, this study is focused on girls recovering from sexual abuse, and based on feedback from my associates in Europe who have had similar girls in there studies they will likely move forward sexually much faster then you would expect. In many cases you may have to help them slow down. Also as a side note as mentioned in my book try to use proper and mature anatomy and sex terms, they may be experienced sexually but abusers don’t exactly make sure they understand what they are doing.
Which brings me to the second point, the primary objective is to help the girls and aid their recovery by helping them learn what a healthy sexual relationship looks like while building back confidence and willpower that may have been destroyed by their abuser’s. Obviously you will likely enjoy much of what you do in helping them but you need to remember that the child always comes first. Based on your interview I don’t expect this will be an issue.
Third, confidentiality is an absolute necessity. Not only is this study controversial but these girls' history and what they do with you doesn’t belong in the public sphere. Is all of that clear?” she said, switching from her lecture tone. “Of course” I answered
“Great, then let's move on to logistics, we have evaluated the results of your interview and compared it with the girls currently enrolled and found a few that we feel would be a good match for you. We shared your profile with them and they are willing to meet. We will get to them in a second first lets go over process, like I mentioned we are short on adults in the study so at some point if you have the capacity we may ask you to take on more than one girl at at time but to start we will see if we can match you with one girl today and be sure the process is working well for everyone before we add more to your plate.
Once we choose a girl from the files you can meet with them and their guardians. They are actually all in the same group therapy right now so we can grab the lucky girl when we finish here.
As you likely gathered from the book your role is fairly flexible, once you have been introduced assuming the girl, their guardian, and yourself are all still willing to proceed you can exchange contact information and meet as often as you like. You will be required to send us a brief report on any in-person meeting within 48 hours of the meeting. You’ll also need to come in once a week to the clinic, it should take about 2 hours. We will complete STI testing and you will be interviewed about the progress of the relationship. For the last ~30 min you will join the girl and her therapist for a session to discuss any issues. Any questions?”
“No that’s pretty clear, I’m just surprised it's moving this quickly I figured this would just be an orientation” I responded
“Well hopefully it's a happy surprise, but enough chit chat let me show you the basic details on the girls. Note that we purposely didn’t include any information on the nature of the girl's abuse, that is up to her to share when and if she chooses, they need at least one person in their life that doesn’t know their whole life story on day one. Also don’t feel like you are rejecting someone you don’t choose. Based on the current rate of recruitment I doubt they will be matched with someone else before you get a chance to match again.” She said handing me the file: