Abstract
The impact of childhood sexual abuse is conceptualized as a post-traumatic stress disorder, and a study supporting this formulation is presented. Analyses included 71 sexually abused children and their mothers and involved measures of abuse severity, children's attributional style, and child adjustment. Results supported the PTSD formulation in that (a) sexually abused children displayed symptoms consistent with the DSM-III-R definition of PTSD, and (b) individual and contextual factors thought to mediate the impact of other forms of trauma, such as combat and rape, also appeared to mediate the impact of childhood sexual abuse (i.e., severity of the sexual abuse and the child's attributional style regarding the causes of positive and negative events).
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