Adult Survivors Of Childhood Abuse Research Articles

Family violence: a clinical and legal guide

Physical abuse of children and adolescents. Child and adolescent neglect and emotional maltreatment of children. Overview of child sexual abuse. Treatment and prevention of child sexual abuse. Spouse abuse and domestic violence. Elder abuse. Adult survivors of child abuse and neglect. Memories of childhood trauma: therapeutic considerations for assessment and treatment. Appendix. Index.

Review of Healing Tasks: Psychotherapy With Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse.

Review of Healing Tasks: Psychotherapy With Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse.

Deficits in short-term memory in adult survivors of childhood abuse

Exposure to stress has been associated with alterations in memory function, and we have previously shown deficits in short-term verbal memory in patients with a history of exposure to the stress of combat and the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Few studies of any kind have focused on adult survivors of childhood physical and sexual abuse. The purpose of this study was to investigate short-term memory function in adult survivors of childhood abuse. Adult survivors of severe childhood physical and sexual abuse ( n - 21), as defined by specific criteria derived from the Early Trauma Inventory (ETI), who were presenting for psychiatric treatment were compared with healthy subjects ( n = 20) matched for several variables including age, alcohol abuse, and years of education. All subjects were assessed with the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) Logical (verbal memory) and Figural (visual memory) components, the Verbal and Visual Selective Reminding Tests (SRT), and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). Adult survivors of childhood abuse had significantly lower scores on the WMS Logical component for immediate and delayed recall in comparison to normal subjects, with no difference in visual memory, as measured by the WMS or the SRT, or IQ, as measured by the WAIS-R. Deficits in verbal memory, as measured by the WMS, were associated with the severity of abuse, as measured by a composite score on the ETI. Our findings suggest that childhood physical and sexual abuse is associated with long-term deficits in verbal short-term memory. These findings of specific deficits in verbal (and not visual) memory, with no change in IQ, are similar to the pattern of deficits that we have previously found in patients with combat-related PTSD.

Shame, guilt, and anger in college students exposed to abusive family environments

The relationship between an abusive environment within the family and proneness to shame, guilt, anger, and hostility in college students revealed that greater exposure to emotional abusiveness was significantly related to higher shame, overt and covert hostility, and expressed and unexpressed anger. Greater exposure to physical abusiveness was significantly related to overt hostility and a tendency to experience anger without a specific provoking situation. Women reported higher shame and guilt, whereas men reported higher levels of overt hostility and expressed anger. Shame proneness was related to covert hostility and unexpressed anger for both men and women. However, guilt proneness was not related to exposure to family abusiveness or, with one exception, to the anger and hostility variables. Implications for therapy with adult survivors of child abuse are discussed.

Projective Drawings: Helping Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse Recognize Boundaries

1. Boundary issues for adult childhood trauma survivors are complex, problematic, difficult to resolve, and occur on a level of unawareness. 2. Boundary concepts can be found in all types of projective drawings. 3. Projective drawings can facilitate awareness and understanding of boundary problems experienced by adult childhood trauma survivors.

Symptoms of female survivors of child sexual abuse.

Women who suffered sexual abuse as children often experience a variety of physical and psychosocial symptoms as adults. Identifying this pattern of symptoms might assist health professionals in recognizing and treating nonreporting survivors of child sexual abuse. In this study, the Adult Survivors of Incest (ASI) Questionnaire (Brown & Garrison, 1990) was used to determine the symptoms and contributing factors for 22 adult survivors of child sexual abuse. Six physical symptoms were experienced by 50% of the subjects, and over 75% of the subjects experienced 11 psychosocial symptoms. The number of physical symptoms correlated significantly with other victimizations (r = .59) and number of psychosocial symptoms (r = .56). The findings suggest that the ASI Questionnaire was effective in identifying patterns of symptoms and contributing factors of adult survivors of child abuse. Additional study is needed to determine the usefulness of this questionnaire in identifying nonreporting survivors in clinical situations.

Neophobia, Ontological Insecurity, and Existential Choice Following Trauma

This article offers a model for understanding the paradoxical behavior of adult survivors of child abuse. Reinforcement theory predicts AUTHORS' NOTE: We gratefully acknowledge Katharine Thompson and Gladys Patterson for their invaluable assistance in developing concepts and preparing this article. The concepts in this article were first publicly presented by Martin R. Smith and Marjorie K. TIoomim during a lecture entitled "The Psychology of Trauma and Shock" at the C.L.A.R.E. Foundation, Los Angeles, August 1986. that organisms will seek pleasure and avoid pain, yet adults abused in childhood continue in self-injurious and self-damaging patterns of behavior with no seeming regard for hedonic (feeling) consequences. This model proposes that, following chronic trauma, the neocortex loses its capacity to rationally evaluate and guide behavior and is relegated to simply ratifying a primitive form of rote, inflexible, subcortical mediation of behavior. The primary purpose of this subcortical meditation is to maintain a state of dissociation that keeps the mental, emotional, and behavioral aspects of early trauma from becoming conscious. This behavior is termed neophobic, derived from neophobia, meaning fear of the new. Subcortical mediation has an ontological reinforcement because it is concerned with the existential problem of making choices that seem to ensure survival even when the choices are irrational in terms of selfpreservation. The therapeutic requirements are to carefully and gently extinguish neophobic perseveration in dissociation, restore neocortical ability for rational choice making, and assist in mourning the loss of ontological well-being.

Multiple personality in eating disorder patients

Although the overlap between childhood sexual and physical abuse and eating disorders is well known, little work has been done on the sequelae of childhood trauma in eating disorder patients. Dissociative phenomena are common in adult survivors of childhood abuse, with multiple personality disorder (MPD) being the most extreme form of dissociative disorder. We describe two women who presented for inpatient treatment of eating disorders who were subsequently found to have MPD. Because the eating pathology in these patients contained atypical features related to the MPD process, uncovering MPD was critical in the treatment of their eating behavior. MPD should be considered in any atypical or treatment-resistant eating disorder patient.

Childhood Physical and Sexual Abuse and Failure to Complete Military Basic Training

Forty percent of a group of 25 military basic trainees discharged from training for mental health reasons admitted histories of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse. In a control group of 25 successful trainees, only 1 gave a history of abuse. Consistent with published studies of childhood abuse in psychiatric patient samples, women in our discharge group were more likely to report abuse histories than men. Perpetrators were usually reported as non-biological male family members of the respective victims. The authors conclude that adult survivors of childhood abuse appear to be less able to tolerate the stresses of military basic training, and discuss the need for identifying and therapeutically assisting these individuals during their training.