"It's not possible for this to not be deeply disruptive to family members," says Matt Lundquist, LCSW, a Manhattan psychotherapist who works with sexual abuse survivors . Instead of trying to save every familial relationship a survivor has, in his practice, Lunquist tries to help his patients identify which relationships can be preserved. It starts with figuring out who is and is not safe for the patient to be around, he says. "When we talk to people who are reconciling abuse, we say things like 'Hey, you're supposed to go hang out with your brother this weekend. Is he safe?'" What he means by that is: Does the brother believe the person's side of the story? Is he going to respect the person's boundaries — that they may not want to discuss or see their abuser? "If somebody asserts that they were molested by somebody in their family, it's not healthy for them to have that relationship with that person," Lundquist says. So it's important for family members to respect and facilitate distance.