Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part I History and definition
- 1 Definitional issues in child maltreatment
- 2 Physical child abuse in America: past, present, and future
- 3 Pediatrics and child abuse
- 4 Sexual abuse of children: causes and consequences
- 5 The intergenerational transmission of child abuse
- Part II Parental and contextual influences on maltreatment
- Part III The developmental consequences of child maltreatment
- Name index
- Subject index
4 - Sexual abuse of children: causes and consequences
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part I History and definition
- 1 Definitional issues in child maltreatment
- 2 Physical child abuse in America: past, present, and future
- 3 Pediatrics and child abuse
- 4 Sexual abuse of children: causes and consequences
- 5 The intergenerational transmission of child abuse
- Part II Parental and contextual influences on maltreatment
- Part III The developmental consequences of child maltreatment
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction
Mrs. G., in psychiatric treatment for over 12 years, vacillated between various states of integration and hospitalization. A referral for medical evaluation and a sigmoidoscopy for rectal bleeding connected a long-standing delusion that her brain was “rotten” with an early sexual trauma. Sections of therapy interviews illustrate how the event fragmented the ego and the memory recall of the event.
Memory 1 One time a long time ago – I don't even remember how long ago, when I was a lot younger, on Saturdays I used to have to take my two brothers and sister to the park. There was a man at the park and he did something to my rectum and he had to go to jail for it. I had to go to court. I was maybe about 10. … He made it bleed. Then I had to go to court and tell them. I remember what the man looked like, but I can't remember what he did.… He was an old man; he was a dirty man; he stunk; his clothes were dirty. I had on a bathing suit. It's such a bad thing. If it hadn't been bad, they wouldn't have sent him to jail and the policeman wouldn't have hit him. We were in the park. I must have told somebody. I think I was scared because I was bleeding.
Memory 2 I was just thinking that I could still feel it. … I always felt so dirty. I felt bad because they put him in jail for something I let him do. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Child MaltreatmentTheory and Research on the Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect, pp. 95 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
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