Creating a safe environment Healthcare providers have been encouraged to routinely screen all female patients for abuse and violence. Clinicians also need to demonstrate their ability and willingness to hear the patient's story. Before an abuse victim can tell her story, she must have some degree of confidence that the listener is reliable, trustworthy, sensitive, caring, and safe. It is through the clinician's genuineness, warmth, acceptance, and understanding that trust and faith in the caring capacities of others are restored for the patient. To be talked to in a polite manner, to have one's thoughts and feelings acknowledged and respected, to be liked as a human being are all powerful healing experiences.
Traumatic violence leaves the victim feeling powerless and helpless.
Therefore, healing requires that the victim regain a measure of personal control in her life. It is the patient who decides who to talk to and how much to say. Clinicians should ask the victim how it feels to talk about the abuse. Many victims are ambivalent about telling their story. They worry that others may question their character or cast doubt on the authenticity of their story.