Effects Of Child Sexual Abuse

Of the many problems faced by children and adolescents, few provoke such moral outrage as childhood sexual abuse. Many times, as on the television show “To Catch a Predator”, such abuse can be inflicted by strangers who may gradually become familiar with the child online. Sadly, however, often times the perpetrator of sexual abuse on children is someone much more familiar to the child- someone the child may even love.

Research has revealed that there is a strong relationship between insecure attachment and a history of abuse and neglect (Begle, Dumas & Hanson, 2010). Insecure attachments are formed due to parenting stress and abusive parenting behavior. Parenting stress and abusive parenting behavior form children’s mental schemas of how the world works based upon early interactions with caregivers. These mental schemas construct their expectations about relationships. Ultimately

An article written about the effects of sexual abuse in accordance with male victims, claims: “[t]hree perspectives of early family relationships and attachment theory, developmental psychopathology, and trauma theory provide a conceptual understanding as to why some victims are vulnerable to the effects of sexual abuse while others appear resilient to it.” Although the study's main objective is to understand the developmental effects of male CSA survivors, it also notes that the majority of the data collected about the psychological well being of the sample is also representative of female CSA survivors. In a similar study on the repercussions of sexual abuse in male victims, Scott Eastman depicts a table simply explaining the process of coping, or the problems tied to CSA. Much like a story line, there is a beginning a middle and an end after the initial incident, but not all survivors reach the stages of completion and often times face difficulties coping. In the middle stage of the process, is distraction, obsessive review. These are symptoms tied to PTSD, defined as a disorder which a traumatic event causes flashbacks, nightmares, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event. It may reasonably be concluded that the obsessive thoughts are tied to PTSD because reviewing the traumatic experience may give the illusion of understanding to the survivor. In the final Stage of the process, following acceptance, is

While negative effects manifest differently in females than males, the abuse is equally damaging to both genders. In my experience, most male CSA victims are riddled with feelings of guilt and shame. Most often their abuse was perpetrated by a trusted male during a critical time in development. Although the sexual contact was unsolicited and unwanted, their body had a physiological response to stimulation. This confusion often contributes to the victim’s belief that the abuse was somehow their fault, therefore “causing an unwillingness to admit to being victimized, and difficulty making negative attributions regarding an otherwise positive person” Ondersma et al.). Rind’s utilization of a college sample excludes the aforementioned male CSA victims. Since their maladaptive behaviors often lead to addiction, delinquency, and poor academic performance, males who suffered more maladaptive effects are very unlikely to be included in a college sample. Therefore, Rind’s findings can’t be accurately generalized to the majority

The current research shows that child sexual abuse has a long-lasting impact on attachment style from early childhood continuing into adulthood. Fresno et al. (2014) were interested in the attachment representations in preschool aged children in Chile because few studies focus on CSA survivors that young and the results of those few studies have not been conclusive. Past studies have found inconsistent results; some studies have determined a CSA is directly linked to insecure attachment representations in survivors, and other studies have found no differences in self-representation among children with CSA history and non-abused children and furthermore, children who were sexually abused had

As many as one in three females have experienced sexual abuse by the age of 18 (Russell, 1986). Many survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) experience negative psychological symptoms (Browne & Finkelhor, 1986; Kendall-Tackett, Williams, L. M., & Finkelhor, 1993). These women may later in life engage in relationships. The negative impact of sexual abuse could result in challenges faced by the relationship due to shame and difficulty with trust (Kochka & Carolan, 2002; MacIntosh & Johnson, 2008). CSA may also result in sexual challenges for the couple (Kochka & Carolan, 2002). Research has found that couples therapy can be of significance to the healing of the CSA survivor as well as functioning and growth in the relationship (Kochka &

In the typical classroom, a 4-year-old child once said, “If someone wants to have sex with you, you have to do it.” (Rafanello) Child abuse is more prevalent now than ever, and the numbers are only growing. This shows us that child abuse is more relevant now than ever. The amount of damage inflicted on these children mentally range from mild to extreme. This is why it’s important that child abuse gets reported as soon as possible.

Other times, unfortunately, the offender may be an immediate family member, close relative or family friend that the child knows and loves. In a study conducted by Ullman (2007), 733 college students completed a self-administered survey. The survey was twenty pages in length and asked students about personal CSA experiences. One section of the survey specifically asked about perpetrator identity, which was divided into three separate groups: stranger, neighbor/acquaintance, or relative. Subsequently, the degree of emotional closeness to the perpetrator before and after the abuse took place was assessed by single-item Likert-style questions. Results of this study showed that abuse by relatives was more severe than abuse by strangers or acquaintances, and abuse began at a significantly younger age for victims of relatives than for victims of acquaintances (Ullman 2007). As expected, the results of this study also showed that more PTSD symptoms were found in victims who were abused by a relative. Consistent with this finding, Bornstein, Kaplan, and Perry (2007) reported that sexual abuse, whether mild or severe, was rated by victims as more traumatic and severe if the perpetrator was a parent rather than a babysitter. The results of this particular finding are illustrated in the following

The article that I read was on long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse. The article covers many symptoms that survivors experience as a result of the abuse. Survivors are faced with trust issues, self-blame, and shame. Most of the sexual abuse is performed by someone the child trusts and loves. The effects are many and some that are abused even regress the abuse. Taking that first step to counseling or therapy is the start of the healing process.

Child sexual abuse is an ever-present, psychologically and physically damaging event that occurs daily to hundreds of children. Unfortunately, child sexual abuse is not going away any time soon and the lives of so many precious children are altered forever. These abused children often grow up to be psychologically damaged adults with emotional, cognitive and physical issues that may never be able to be conquered. Far too many adults live with the pain of their secret and it can be quite debilitating. Adults who were abused as children may have many problems in their

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) refers to sexual relations with a child, who is powerless to consent (King, Wardecker, & Edelstein, 2016). CSA is a considerably prevalent and common problem in our world today, which may result in long-term adverse outcomes, such as PTSD, suicidal thoughts, low self-esteem, and depression. In addition to these long-term adverse outcomes, CSA also affects family functioning and interpersonal problems, such as parent/child relationships.

. (Stewart, ) contends that feelings of vulnerability, unworthiness and powerless difficulty in distinguishing sexual from affectionate behaviours, mistrust, shame, guilt, stigma and mental health problems are psychological effects of CSA. A study conducted by (Wilson, 2010) indicates that adult survivors of CSA show a series of psychological and physical problems throughout their lives. (Hornor, 2010) argues that the majority of children who are sexually abused will be moderately to severely symptomatic at some point in their life. There is evidence to suggest that (Stevenson, 1999) children who are exposed to sexual abuse are at risk negative consequences as a result of the abuse itself, not solely as a consequence of other associated background

The study hypothesize that CSA survivors would have difficulty forming secure, intimate, nonabusive relationships and that CSA survivors are at risk for depression in low quality intimate relationships. Despite the overall quality of their intimate relationships, those that were severely abused reported feeling more anxious about their attachment to their partners (Aube, Judd & Whiffen, 1999). The partner that had a history of sexual abuse reported feeling unloved and abandoned by their partner but at the same time they felt like they could depend on them when they needed them. In adult attachment theory, this states that the survivor is experiencing an anxious attachment style. A limitation of this study was that they sampled women that were

1. Alexander, P. C. (1993). The differential effects of abuse characteristics and attachment in the prediction of long-term effects of sexual abuse. Journal of interpersonal violence, 8, 346-362

Barnum, E. L, McGovern, K.M, conducted a study to examine the relationships between attachment security, childhood sexual trauma, sexual self-esteem, and subjective well-being. The researchers predicted that lower levels of secure attachment, higher presence of childhood sexual trauma while lower levels of sexual self-esteem contributed to lower levels of subjective well-being. In this study, there were 213 undergraduate students participated from Midwestern university. This study was based on the theories of attachment from Bowlby (1973) and well-being by Lent (2004). These theories gave the reseachers a framework to build the hypotheses for this study. In this past research, the researchers concluded that lower attachment security would be