Exploring the Meanings of Posttraumatic Growth in Spanish Survivors of Clergy-Perpetrated Child Sexual Abuse: A Phenomenological Approach

ABSTRACT

A healing and recovery perspective related to child sexual abuse (CSA) has gained attention in the past two decades, a concept that accurately refers to the process is posttraumatic growth (PTG). Scarce empirical research on PTG in clergy-perpetrated CSA survivors shows evidence of the presence of growth after the abusive experience and a tendency to create accounts of trauma as a way to heal. The general aim of the study is to explore the experiences and meanings of PTG as lived by survivors of clergy-perpetrated CSA. Seven clergy-perpetrated CSA survivors were interviewed with semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in person. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we identified three dominant themes in the participants’ stories: (a) the hindering of PTG; (b) the meanings of PTG, and (c) the internal and contextual and facilitators of PTG. The present study brings new insights into the meanings of PTG, the close relationship between damage and growth, and the mechanisms (both internal and contextual) that are involved in healing from clergy-perpetrated CSA in Spanish culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Child sexual abuse
• survivor
• posttraumatic growth
• Spain
• clergy-perpetrated CSA
• Catholic church

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2024.2304241

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía Industria y Competitividad [grant number DER2017-85269-C3-2-P] and the Generalitat de Catalunya [grant number SGR 1237 GRC] and, partially supported by the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA Academia 2016).

Notes on contributors

Laura Sicilia

Laura Sicilia, PhD candidate, is a researcher at the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology of the University of Barcelona, Spain.

Claudia Capella

Claudia Capella, PhD, is a professor of Psychology at the University of Chile, in Santiago, Chile.

Maite Barrios

Maite Barrios, Ph.D., is a Full Professor at the Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology of the University of Barcelona, Spain.

Noemí Pereda

Noemí Pereda, PhD, is a tenured associate professor of victimology at at the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology of the University of Barcelona.