Sexual Abuse

This study examined the association between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and parenting outcomes including parenting stress, feelings of competence and discipline strategies. Maternal depression and current partner violence were hypothesized to be mediators of the association between CSA and parenting. This study is based on secondary data analysis of archived data. The participants were 263 primiparous mothers (107 with a history of CSA and 156 comparison mothers recruited from a prenatal clinic prior to the birth of their first child. Mothers were interviewed twice: once when they were between 28 and 32 weeks gestation and again when their child was between 2 and 4 years of age. During the first interview, women were asked about childhood experiences of sexual abuse. During their second interview, they were asked about current symptoms of pathology and experiences with partner violence and parenting beliefs and practices. Structural Equation Modeling indicated that the relationship...

Psychology, like other mental health professions, has experienced difficulty addressing the issue of therapist-patient sexual intimacies vigorously, carefully, and effectively. Six fundamental challenges, based on frequently made comparisons of therapist-patient sex to incest and rape, are identified as crucial in addressing forms of sex abuse in which perpetrators are predominantly male and victims are predominantly female: (a) acknowledging the scope of the phenomenon, (b) affirming the notion and the mechanisms of accountability, (c) assessing the validity of allegations, (d) evaluating the nature and validity of research evidence, (e) overcoming perpetrator stereotypes and inclinations to collude with or to enable sex offenders, and (f) confronting the notion of victim responsibility.

Trauma, particularly physical and sexual violence, is silencing. There is often a loss of words or an inability to communicate the horror of what the survivor experienced; yet, internal meaning is made of the events that have transpired. The person may not have been ready, which is rarely the case, so the mind and the body continue to experience symptomology that are residual “leftovers” from the traumatic experiences. How does a clinician manage the silence, the ripples, the phenomenological interpretation, and body responses?

In extreme cases clinicians feel powerless; traditional psychotherapy may not be making progress. The power of art making is the transfer of symbolic non-verbal communication between client and clinician. A client finds their own creative expression of the events that have transpired and they communicate through an intermediary, the paper. Within the paper lays their trauma narrative, their lifestyles, and their phenomenological understandings of the trauma. With art, the movement in session has already begun; the client is showing you the way.

This presentation will provide clinicians with a brief introduction to the principles of Adlerian Trauma Centered Psychotherapy and some basic interventions that can help engage clients in trauma treatment. Be prepared to make some art, for the best way to learn is to experience!

The following paper exposes the results and conclusions of a prevention program about dating violence, carried out with teenagers, in high schools. The program was designed to produce changes in individual attitudes, knowledge and skills of the students, with the objective of being able to eliminate the myths and wrong ideas underlying gender violence, as well as to enable the students to detect and to recognize physical, psychological and sexual abuse. In accordance with the program objectives we decided to use techniques in which all the class group participated, such as analysis of documents and movies, Focus Groups technique and debates. This work presents the development process of the program, the most representative results of the experience and the final conclusions.

The present 4-year follow-up study involves 56 mothers who were evaluated by social agencies as being abusive and neglectful or at high risk for child abuse and neglect. The aim of the study is to analyze the relationship between psychosocial risk factors (relating to the history and current situation of the mothers) that were present at the time the families

This paper aims to examine forensic interviewing techniques during child sexual abuse allegations using South African lenses. Forensic Social Work education and practice in South Africa is emerging as it has been adopted from the United States of America.  There are currently no guidelines for forensic social workers to inform the assessment of children who are alleged to be sexually abused which are in a South African context. For the protection of children, skillful forensic interviews must be conducted for perpetrators of child sexual abuse to be convicted. Forensic interviews help in eliciting accurate and complete report from the alleged child victim to determine if the child has been sexually abused and if so, by whom. The ecosystems theory is used to guide this paper. An extensive literature review was conducted to zoom into systems in South Africa which influence the effectiveness of the forensic interviewing techniques useful to facilitate the disclosure of sexual abus...

All too often it has been assumed that male victims of sexual abuse are simply similar to their female counterparts. The present study compares the psychological and substance use statuses of sexually abused adolescent male psychiatric inpatients with nonsexually ...

Sexual abuse of children and minors is, nowadays, regularly highlighted in the media. As such, it became an offence, however, only during the nineteenth century, along with the development of a particular, child-like social role of juveniles. Before 1800, adolescents were less excluded from adult life including marriage and procreation. Sexual activities were also generally criminalised outside marriage. Statutes concerning child abuse had their origins in these laws, as well as in statutes extending the scope of rape to the abuse of immature girls. Along with the increase of the age of consent from 10–12 to approximately 16 in most countries, abuse of boys and sexual contacts other than intercourse have been included in these statutes. This movement, sometimes supported by moral crusades against ‘immorality’, occurred in most Western countries along with the extension of the school system, and with the acceptance of the view that adolescence should, as a distinct period of life, be...

Despite substantially higher rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among male inmates than among men in the general population, there is a dearth of research on PTSD among incarcerated men. The current study addresses traumatic events that precede PTSD and psychiatric disorders that are comorbid with PTSD in an inmate sample. Seeing someone seriously injured or killed, being sexually abused, and being physically assaulted were the three most commonly reported antecedent traumas to PTSD. Lifetime and current rates of mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and antisocial personality disorder were elevated among inmates with a diagnosis of PTSD. Two hundred and thirteen inmates participated in the study. Sixty-nine participants (33%) met lifetime DSM–III–R criteria for PTSD, and 45 (21%) met current criteria. The findings are compared with general population samples, and implications of the findings are discussed.

The Women, Co-occurring Disorders, and Violence Study (WCDVS) was a multi-site cooperative study to evaluate new service models for women with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders and a history of physical and/or sexual abuse. Despite common features in the service interventions and evaluation procedures, diversity across the nine sites plus differences introduced by non-random assignment led to numerous methodological challenges. This article describes the design, measurement, and analysis decisions behind the WCDVS and lays the foundation for understanding participant-level outcomes and service costs. This article also describes the study population, as recruited and following attrition at the 6-month follow-up, in order to address the threat of selection bias to inferences drawn from this multi-site study.

Problems exist in identifying and treating deaf "survivors" of child sexual abuse.  Even once they are identified, there are still problems in effectively applying existing regimens of therapy to this special population.  While mainstreaming the deaf person into society seems to be the wave of the future, and there are positive aspects to this, careful consideration, respect, and acknowledgement must be given to the special culture of the deaf person.  Employing existing therapeutic methods, with only the adjustment of supplying an interpreter for the Deaf, may not be enough.

The present Best Practices Guide, is a collection of existing best practices across the EU and beyond, aiming to tackle sexual harassment in sports. The purpose of this publication is to:
- provide best practices in preventing and responding to sexual harassment in sport
- assist sport clubs in establishing and implementing internal policies and procedures tackling sexual harassment and the identification of the various roles individuals (athletes, coaches and other sport professionals) can play in preventing and responding to sexual harassment
- assist policy makers to create policies preventing and combating sexual harassment in sport
- contribute to a knowledge base already available for linking action to eliminate sexual harassment in sport
- serve as an inspiration for the replication of the best practices identified and contribute to the work of researchers, practitioners and policy-makers on the field worldwide
- be able to reach the necessary outcomes, the partners will carry out a desk research, through which they will aim to identify best practices in terms of Design and development process / Categories of Activities implemented / Legal and regulatory compliance / Institutional involvement / Level of Governance involved / Procedures and processes / Target Groups / Results and promote their use.

Risk and protective factors of psychosocial development in children in different residential care settings need to be further studied internationally, in order to develop working methods for social and health care services. Standardized methods of the CBCL, TRF, and CGAS, were used to evaluate psychosocial functioning of children in children's homes in Finland. Further, data on sociodemographic situations and traumatic events in their lives were assembled. The percentage of behavioural and emotional problems within clinical or borderline range in the different ratings was 55–80%. Combined traumatization, sexual abuse, school difficulties, male sex, older age (>11 years) and older age at first and on-going placement (>7 years), as well as difficulties in relationships with parents are likely to be associated with more severe behaviour problems and lower general functioning. The results of this study show that children and adolescents in social service residential settings are a highly vulnerable group and that these children have extensive mental health needs.

Past and current memory for childhood sexual abuse reported by a clinical sample of 160 women survivors was assessed utilizing a structured clinical interview. Response alternatives for memory were ordered along a continuum. To minimize treatment effects, ...

This paper surveys the literature on child sexual abuse and the symptoms in school-age children, focusing on sexual aggression in children as the most indicative symptom in child victims and the most disruptive to the school. Society likes to think that child molestation is relatively rare. Statistics show this is not so. While the figures vary, an average of them indicates that one out of every three girls and one out of every five boys will be sexually abused before they reach age eighteen (The Advocacy Center, "The Facts About Youth Sexual Abuse" http://www.theadvocacycenter.org/adv_abuse.html.) Up to 95% of child molestations can be prevented. Talking to children honestly, and from an early age.about not letting others touch their private parts and telling them that it is appropriate to tell an adult if someone tries, can go a long way to stopping this social problem.

Fourteen randomly assigned Iranian girls ages 12–13 years who had been sexually abused received up to 12 sessions of CBT or EMDR treatment. Assessment of post-traumatic stress symptoms and problem behaviours was completed at pre-treatment and 2 ...

Two hundred thirty four participants in the DSM-IV Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Field Trial who reported sexual and/or physical abuse were evaluated. Participants were categorized according to type of abuse (physical, sexual, both), duration of abuse (acute versus chronic), and onset of abuse (early versus late). Separate logistic regression analyses examined the relationship between age of onset, duration, abuse type, and the complex PTSD (CP) lifetime diagnosis for women and men. Sexually abused women, especially those who also experienced physical abuse, had a higher risk of developing CP, although CP symptoms occurred at a high base rate among physically abused women. The theoretical implications and incremental clinical usefulness of targeting CP symptoms with abused populations are discussed.

(SEE ATTACHED FILE FOR LINK TO THE ONLINE ARTICLE) In 2020 the global 3HO Kundalini Yoga community began awakening to stories of sexually abusive behaviors, manipulative tactics, and exploitative business dealings by Yogi Bhajan and community members, with those in the inner circle enabling abuses and silencing dissenting voices. Students have been grappling with the contradictions of the spiritual teacher who both abused his power and empowered women, proclaiming that “the day the woman will not be exploited on this planet, there shall be peace on this Earth” (Yogi Bhajan, May 9, 1971). People are now awakening to the sexism, misogyny, heteropatriarchy, and white supremacy that have bled through his teachings that purport respect and equality for all. Those in the first generation are now reckoning with the trauma that some of their children experienced being sent away at young ages to live with other families or to boarding school in India where many reported being beaten, neglected, always hungry, told that hardship would make them strong “leaders of tomorrow.” New revelations of abuse by teachers, guides, and leaders of the community continue to be brought to light, demonstrating a history of silencing. How does a community of practitioners, who have spent the past 50 years dedicated to spreading the light, move toward healing when there is so much darkness in the shadow?

https://sacredmattersmagazine.com/the-painful-process-of-awakening-harm-and-healing-in-the-healthy-happy-holy-kundalini-yoga-community/