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In recent years, research on the subject of child sexual abuse disclosures has seen an increase in the use of qualitative methods to explore individual experiences, reflecting an emphasis on understanding diversity rather than typicality. This research study builds on previous work that viewed disclosure as a process that occurs over time, influenced by both anticipated reactions and actual reactions that in turn influence future decisions about disclosing. The study has as its fundamental focus the experience of telling. Interviews were conducted with young people aged 8 to 19 years (n= 22), parents (n= 21) and adults who had experienced sexual abuse in childhood (n= 10). In all, 29 young people’s stories were represented in this study. The study was informed by Grounded Theory methods and data was managed using the NVivo computer programme. By directing the analysis to take account of the impediments to telling, the motivation to tell and the consequences of telling, a theoretical framework emerges that suggests that the experience of disclosure needs to be seen in the context of a process of containing the secret of sexual abuse. This process, it is suggested, involves three key dynamics: active withholding, pressure cooker effect and confiding the secret. The additional characteristics of this process for participants in this study were that it was an active cyclical process that was adaptive for the individual, was re-negotiated over the course of the lifespan in the context of different relationships, was influenced by multiple factors operating at multiple systemic levels–child, family, school, child protection and legal systems, and wider society …