AUSTRALIA
9 News
The Catholic Church’s processes of dealing with sex abuse victims often makes mental and emotional wounds worse, a psychologist has told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry.
Dr Joseph Poznanski told the inquiry into sex abuse within religious and other organisations that victims often came to him expressing despair and helplessness after dealing with the church’s compensation process.
He said the church’s psychiatric assessments would downplay the effect of sexual abuse on victims.
“In the majority of cases this is more like salt to festering wound,” he told the inquiry in Melbourne on Friday.
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