Please join us as we will be working with Dr. Abigail Judge starting Wednesday, June 1st, 9 AM – 10:30 AM. This is the first of a four-part training series developed especially for behavioral health providers to learn how better support survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. You can register for this free series, here.  The remaining sessions are scheduled for June 8, 15, and 22, from 9 AM – 10:30 AM, via  Zoom

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) frequently occurs in relationships of coercion, trauma bonding, and fierce emotional attachment. Understanding these relationships is critical to healing but can be a source of confusion, frustration, and burnout among service providers.

These sessions will go in-depth to focus on the complex psychological relationship between individual and exploiter and describe how professionals can build relationships of trust and mutuality when CSE is ongoing or historical. Since victims and survivors are unlikely to initially self-identify as exploited, or use these clinical terms, a specialized approach to creating shared language and engaging individuals at different phases of CSE will also be described.

Abigail Judge Ph.D. is a clinical and forensic psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and in private practice, and she is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Judge’s hospital-based clinical work, scholarship, and teaching focus on improving the clinical response to women impacted by the continuum of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. Dr. Judge has worked with this population as a therapist, educator, court-appointed evaluator, and expert witness since 2009.

At MGH, Dr. Judge leads MGH Connect: A Project for Outreach and Recovery, which provides low threshold – that is more easily accessible and acceptable – psychological and peer support for women at the intersection of substance use and commercial sexual exploitation/sex trafficking, and is based at the MGH Bridge Clinic. In 2021, this project received a grant from the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General to expand access for BIPOC women through survivor mentoring and engaging women detained at the Suffolk County House of Correction.