The report summarizes current thinking and covers both similarities and differences in the experiences of female and male survivors. Individual sections define sexual abuse, explain the differences in the terms victims and survivors, explain other terms used in the document, and discuss the historically shaped view of survivors and sexual abuse. Additional sections discuss the prevalence of sexual abuse, the reasons why sexual abuse is underreported, the characteristics of abusers, and the impacts of sexual abuse on survivors. The sections focusing on the care and support of adult survivors discuss healing as a social process, methods of dealing with previous attempts at healing, the focus of counseling, issues involved in choosing a counselors, and group counseling techniques. Counseling with aboriginal/native survivors, single parent survivors, and adult survivors who are sex offenders is also discussed. The final section examines barriers to the development of supports and services for sexual abuse victims. Appended reference and resource lists and summary of a survey of Canadian service providers