Parent-child Incest Research Articles

Parent-Child Incest and the Culture of Marriage in Colonial Guatemala

Parent-Child Incest and the Culture of Marriage in Colonial Guatemala

Etiological Risk Factors for Sibling Incest: Data From an Anonymous Computer-Assisted Self-Interview.

Retrospective data from 1,821 women and 1,064 men with one or more siblings, provided anonymously using a computer-assisted self-interview, were used to identify risk factors for sibling incest (SI); 137 were participants in SI. In order of decreasing predictive power, the risk factors identified by the multiple logistic regression analysis included ever having shared a bed for sleeping with a sibling, parent-child incest (PCI), family nudity, low levels of maternal affection, and ever having shared a tub bath with a sibling. The results were consistent with the idea that SI in many families was the cumulative result of four types of parental behaviors: (a) factors that lower external barriers to sexual behavior (e.g., permitting co-sleeping or co-bathing of sibling dyads), (b) factors that encourage nudity of children within the nuclear family and permit children to see the parent's genitals, (c) factors that lead to the siblings relying on one another for affection (e.g., diminished maternal affection), and (d) factors that eroticize young children (e.g., child sexual abuse [CSA] by a parent). Thirty-eight of the 137 SI participants were participants in coerced sibling incest (CSI). In order of decreasing predictive power, risk factors for CSI identified by multiple logistic regression analysis included ever having shared a bed for sleeping with a brother, PCI, witnessing parental physical fighting, and family nudity. SI was more likely to have been reported as CSI if the sibling had touched the reporting sibling's genitals, and less likely to have been reported as CSI if the siblings had shared a bed.

Commentary on “Parent–Child Incest That Extends Into Adulthood: A Survey of International Press Reports, 2007–2011” and “Ongoing Incestuous Abuse During Adulthood” (Middleton)

Commentary on “Parent–Child Incest That Extends Into Adulthood: A Survey of International Press Reports, 2007–2011” and “Ongoing Incestuous Abuse During Adulthood” (Middleton)

Parent–Child Incest That Extends Into Adulthood: A Survey of International Press Reports, 2007–2011

Although the subject of ongoing incestuous abuse during adulthood has never been addressed in a systematic way in the professional literature, accounts of such cases have been appearing for many years. The Josef Fritzl case added a new impetus to reporting such abuses in the popular press. The current study presents 44 such cases from 24 countries that appeared in English-language press accounts over 5 years commencing January 2007. These cases are discussed in light of the minimal coverage of such issues in the professional literature. The results of this study suggest that cases of enduring incest are not rare and typically incorporate decades of sexual abuse, frequently result in pregnancies, and commonly incorporate ongoing violence and death threats.

More than just child’s play: A study on sibling incest

This article outlines some of the findings of a study of ten women who experienced sibling incest as children. Using qualitative research methods, this study explores the nature of the sibling incest relationship, how the incest occurred, the family environment, the effects suffered and the participants’ experience of intervention. For the majority of women, the effects of unwanted sibling incest were similar to the effects of parent-child incest. The participants provided important perspectives on both intervention and prevention strategies that would assist with the problem of sibling incest.This study aims to link the perspective of those who have experienced sibling incest with some implications for professional practice.

Judicial Creativity in a Common Law System

The most remarkable feature of Scots criminal law is that it is still a common law system. It contains, of course, many statutory offences, mostly recent and concerned with the regulation of modern developments such as road traffic or wireless telegraphy. There are also a large number of statutory frauds, dealing with all kinds of things, such as companies, bankruptcies, the regulation of professions, etc., but many of those are unnecessary, in the sense that the behaviour they prohibit can be dealt with as common law fraud, which covers the achievement of any practical result. There are also some modern preventive crimes created by statute, such as carrying offensive weapons in public, but other preventive offences, such as housebreaking with intent to steal, were created by the common law. There are very few of what might be regarded as basic crimes which are statutory. The most striking example is the crime of incest which, until recently, was dealt with under the Incest Act of 1567, passed by the Scottish Parliament in the wake of the Reformation. The Incest Act incorporated the 18th chapter of Leviticus into the law of Scotland, and with some amendments, it remained the law until the passing of the Incest and Related Offences (Scotland) Act 1986. But that was an oddity, and there is some authority that parent-child incest is a common law crime. The basic crimes, such as those concerned with injuring the person or property of others, are essentially matters regulated by the common law, the creations of judges, without any statutory definitions, and all with the same maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Sex and Gender Implications in Cases of Elder Abuse

This paper focuses on caregiving which has failed. Although little attention has been given to the role of sex and gender in elder abuse, an analysis of 77 cases of elder abuse seen in the Detroit area in 1981 revealed that both factors play a role in generating elder abuse, neglect, or exploitation, or in determining its form. Gender issues included: patterns of spouse abuse in old a e; gender differences in the types of abuse/neglect/exploitation wfich were perpetrated; gender concerns of the abuser which generate abuse; and sex or gender discrimination as a type of abuse of the elderly. Sexual factors observed included: parent-child incest; marital rape in old age; and problems of sexual malfunction which helped to generate the abuse. Suggestions for improved professional identification and management of elder abuse cases are made.

A comprehensive child sexual abuse treatment program

The number of families troubled by parent-child incest in the typical community is much larger than suspected by professional helpers. If left unattended, the victim(s) and the family as a whole will be critically traumatized. Parental incest in the nuclear family can be likened to terminal cancer in the individual. The community must encourage the incestuous families to seek treatment and must provide comprehensive in-depth therapy to all members of the family. The etiology and dynamics of parental incest and the treatment method developed by the Directors of the Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Program of Santa Clara County (CSATP), California, are discussed. Over the past ten years the CSATP has provided therapy to over 4,000 children and their families (about 14,000 individuals), by far the largest number so treated by any single organization. About 90% of the children have been returned to their families; and the recidivism rate in the families who have completed the treatment program remains at less than 1%.

Erotic Professional Indiscretions, Actual or Assumed, and Alleged

Actual and alleged erotic professional indiscretions are viewed as extensions of parentchild incest with professional privilege as the equivalent of the incest barrier.

Lot and his Daughters—Parent-Child Incest in the Bible and Mythology

Incest in the Bible and mythology is studied as a preview to the understanding of clinical incest and the related phenomenon of erotic professional indiscretions. In the instances of Lot and Noah, artists’ interpretations of the themes are used to give added insight into their popular significance. The misbehaviour of the Sons of God is presented as the earliest example of the destructive effect of erotic professional indiscretions.

CHILDREN NOT SEVERELY DAMAGED BY INCEST WITH A PARENT

Often referrals to child guidance clinics are made by courts when they suspect that a child has been subjected to incest by a parent; in most cases it has been found that the children were seriously affected by incestual relations with either parent. More often than not these children show defects in their ego functioning. Apparently in our culture the incest taboo is so strong that when parent-child incest occurs, it is psychologically traumatic to the child involved in the act; therefore, it is not surprising to find that either boys or girls may become psychotic after they have had incestual relations. A study by Fleck et al. (1959) on the intrafamilial environment of the schizophrenic patient provides evidence that parent-child incestual acts and fantasies playa much greater role in the development of schizophrenia than had hitherto been assumed. Rascovsky and Rascovsky (1950) reported that it was common to find family disorganization, alcoholism, depression, and sexual maladjustment between parents in the families where incest was consummated between father and daughter. Usually the child escaped into homosexuality as a characteristic outcome of incestuous relations. In cases of father-daughter incest, the psychopathology of the daughters ranged from severe personality disorder and sexual maladjustment to manifest psychosis. In the cases of mother-son incest, the sons, according to various reports, were found to be seriously emotionally disturbed. Wahl (1960)