It was as if this staff member thought that there was some kind of hierarchy of abuse in which physical abuse was somehow less hurtful than sexual abuse. My guess is that his colleagues thought the same way. It s unrealistic and somewhat arrogant to think that we can categorize people s reaction to abuse by the type of abuse the person they have experienced. Abuse isn t about hierarchy. Abuse is an experience and as such the reactions of its victims can only be subjective.
Different people react differently to even the same type of abuse.
We have enough troubles with the hierarchies we have to deal with on a daily basis in our systems. We don t have to go around creating new ones for the youth in our care.