Family characteristics of intact sexually abusing families: An exploratory study - Essay Example

Literature Review Among the most dramatic changes taking place over the past decade has been the increased attention to sexual abuse of children. Over the decade, research has tended to address the concerns of professionals working in the community with cases of child sexual abuse. For example, there has been research interest in how common is sexual use of children by adults and what are the effects of sexual abuse in childhood. Concern for the serious social-psychological effects of sexual abuse has given rise to considerable interest in developing programs to help children prevent or escape the experience of sexual abuse.

Sexual use of younger persons by older persons involves a wide range of specific behaviors. A popular definition of sexual abuse is forced, tricked, or coerced sexual behavior between a young person and an older person. Many current definitions of sexual abuse include the element of an age difference of at least five years between victim and offender. The elements defining sexual abuse are intended to exclude consensual sexual exploration or experimentation, without coercion, between age-mates.

Studies of child victims and adult sexual offenders may yield different rates for the same type of behaviors. Researchers have often tended to use different definitions or criteria for sexual behaviors, and self-report data from sexual offenders are generally regarded as unreliable (Trepper et. al, 1996).Whatever the number, it is clear that sexual abase is a problem that affects large numbers of children. The belief that incest or "family sexual abuse" is a fundamentally different kind of clinical problem than pedophilia is at the basis for current policy that advocates the treatment of incestuous fathers and stepfathers in community settings.

There has been a great deal of research on the characteristics of sexual offenders; but current research has failed to identify characteristics, especially demographic, social, or psychological, that discriminate between sexual offenders and normal persons (Trepper et. al, 1996).According to Trepper, for some time, many professionals have believed that sexual abuse of children is not really a sexual problem but, rather, the sexual expression of nonsexual problems, such as depression, lowered self-esteem, and feelings of inadequacy.

The development of laboratory assessment of sexual arousal has generated considerable questions about this notion. Although some research indicates that child molesters are different from normal persons in their response to children or that child molesters who inflict gratuitous violence can be discriminated from relatively less violent offenders by their arousal to verbal descriptions of sex and violence against children, there has been little empirical evaluation of the sexual arousal of incest offenders.

In an early study, (Trepper et al., 1996) evaluated nine incestuous and seven nonincestuous child molesters and found that the incestuous (father or stepfather) offenders exhibited more appropriate (i.e., adult) sexual arousal than did the nonincestuous child molesters. Many adults simply do not respond to any sexual stimuli in the lab where 22% of child molesters and 34% of incest offenders failed to respond). Whether sexual abuse of children is, at least in part, a sexual problem has significant implications for the nature of treatment that is likely to be effective in treating adult offenders.

ReferencesTrepper, Terry S, Niedner, Dawn, Mika, Linda, Barrett, Mary Jo.; Family characteristics of intact sexually abusing families: An exploratory study; Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. Binghamton: 1996.Vol.5, Iss. 4; pg. 1, 18 pgs