Mental health scholars have opened an important arena of new discoveries through research on coping in the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse. By shifting research focus toward healing and away from pathology, important questions are being generated. By what processes do female survivors cope and what influences these processes?

Using the grounded theory method, 25 semi-structured interviews were coded and linked by theme. Analysis of survivors' descriptions revealed a healing progression marked initially by a disrupted sense of self and withdrawal from important interpersonal relationships, yet often followed by gradual reengagement with self and others. Characteristics of distinct coping strategies of disengagement and reengagement were delineated.

This study introduces a new direction for future research on adult coping following childhood sexual abuse by providing initial evidence of the influence of a neurological preference accentuating either right or left brain functioning, identified in the neuroscience literature as hemisphericity. Survivors used a full range of right- or left-brain oriented coping strategies, but as a group emphasized strategies that in previous research had been associated with a right-brain orientation. Preliminary evidence emerged from survivors' accounts indicating that use of right-brain oriented coping strategies better facilitated reengagement. These findings suggest that future studies should explore the relative influence of hemisphericity along with contextual and developmental factors in shaping survivors' adjustment over the lifespan.

Therapeutic treatment principles and applied clinical recommendations are presented based on four healing processes survivors identified as critical: (a) returning to the self, (b) rejoining with others through deepening interpersonal relationships, (c) bringing life into harmony with a conscious purpose, and (d) setting this purpose into motion within community. Therapists can engage in alleviating the shame and stigma of abuse at the root of survivors' need to present socially protective selves by adopting a right-brain-to-right-brain nonverbal stance that communicates openness and respect. This is especially important when clients disclose feelings and behaviors related to coping strategies of disengagement. By exposing clients to broader options for personal and social reengagement, clients can be empowered to create a new self-story and transcend coping strategies that are no longer adaptive.