The Flying Child - A Cautionary Fairytale for Adults: Finding a purposeful life after Child Sexual Abuse through compassionate and creative therapy

‘And then came the session where I felt I would give up. I felt frustrated as I’d worked so hard on trying to speak but the most important words; the worst ones, had simply not come out. I implied I would not necessarily come back the following week and as I got up to leave the room, Pat said,   ‘Try detaching from it entirely. Try writing it as a fairy story. Start with the words, once upon a time there was a little girl’.   That evening, I tried. I sat on my bed and typed on the note’s app of my phone Once Upon A Time … and finally, four decades after the abuse began, the words started to flow.’   This book documents the therapeutic journey undertaken by Sophie and her therapist, Pat. It includes all chapters of the fairy tale and the drawings Sophie created to help her make sense of her experiences and to reconnect with herself. It also contains the many in-between session conversations Pat and Sophie had by email, WhatsApp, and texts, with important insights into how to work safely with trauma.   Essential reading for all therapists, counsellors, health professionals, educators, and social workers, interested in understanding or working with survivors of child sexual abuse, and for those who are survivors of sexual abuse, The Flying Child – A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Adults- Finding a purposeful life after Child Sexual Abuse through compassionate and creative therapy – is a must- have for your bookshelf.   Today, Sophie is a survivor activist, writer, founder and managing director of The Flying Child: a non-profit, National Lottery Community Funded organisation improving the awareness of child sexual abuse and the consequences of trauma. The core aim of The Flying Child is to normalise speaking about CSA. The Flying Child Project brings lived experience into the heart of professional settings, providing training in Education, Social Work and Healthcare.   Pat Walsh is an experiential and intuitive counsellor with over forty years’ experience of working in trauma. Her background in nursing and occupational therapy taught her that to heal properly, wounds must be deeply cleansed, and purpose and meaning must be established to build any long -lasting recovery. She brings these learnings into her therapeutic work with survivors of sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse.

About the Author :
Sophie Olson is a survivor activist, writer, founder and managing director of The Flying Child: a nonprofit, National Lottery Community Funded organisation improving the awareness of child sexual abuse and the consequences of trauma. The core aim of The Flying Child is to normalise speaking about CSA. The Flying Child Project brings lived experience into the heart of professional settings, providing training in Education, Social Work and Healthcare. Sophie’s work aims to challenge the societal culture of silence around CSA. She has a particular interest in the non-pathologisation of trauma, and advocates for appropriate specialist therapy and support. With first-hand experience in a system that was unable to support her with childhood trauma, her story was covered by Radio 4 in the Lights Out documentary “The Last Taboo” She works with various research projects across Dentistry, Mental Health and Maternity, aiming to improve survivor access – and is co-developing The Skylark Project: a pathway of care in the NHS, specifically for survivors of sexual violence, conceptualised by a collaboration between Sophie and Dr. Charlotte Small, co-lead of the Herefordshire Pain Management Service and clinical lead of the Wye Valley Trust Preoperative Assessment Service. Sophie is a guest speaker, publishes on The Flying Child blog, and her writing, poetry and art has been featured in the work of Epione, Drop the Disorder and The Survivorzine. Most recently, she was shortlisted for the Criminal Justice Alliance Awards 2022 Saskia Jones Award for Victims Services. The Flying Child - A Cautionary Fairy-tale for Adults, - Finding a Purposeful Life After Child Sexual Abuse Through Compassionate and Creative Therapy— will be published in 2024 by ZunTold.   Patricia Walsh is an experiential and intuitive counsellor with over forty years’ experience of working in trauma. The counselling approach Pat uses allows her to work without judgement - to ‘hear and listen’, to ‘see and gain insight’ into the human being who has come to her for assistance. Her first training to become a State Registered Nurse taught her caring and compassion, along with the importance of cleansing a wound diligently and deeply if it is going to heal. This technique she also applies to psychological wounds. Her next training as an Occupational Therapist showed her the importance of engaging patients in purposeful activities, helping them to find a meaning to life when all seemed lost. Her desire to explore the part that the mind plays in healing led her to train in Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy at the National College of Hypnotherapy in London.  This was followed by a BSc Hons in Psychology and a 3-year training programme in Counselling & Psychotherapy to become a member of the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). Throughout her studies, she was employed as an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA) working with high-risk cases of domestic abuse. After qualifying as a counsellor, she was selected by the Police Firearms Officers Association for training in Trauma & PTSD. Recently, she has completed a course to become a Qigong practitioner.