Child Sexual Abuse Uncovered and Investigated (Video)
How to Protect Your Child from Sexual Abuse
The Effect of Freud’s Renunciation
The renunciation of Freud’s seduction theory and later, the forwarding of the Oedipus complex, profoundly affected the mental health profession. Psychoanalytic theory became the foundation for psychiatry for many years to come, with the Oedipus complex being the core of that theory. To use psychoanalytic theory, however, Freud’s original theory of seduction had to be renounced. As Anna Freud wrote, “Keeping the seduction theory would mean to abandon the Oedipus complex, and with it the whole importance of phantasy life, conscious or unconscious phantasy. In fact, I think there would have been no psychoanalysis afterwards”. The development of the knowledge base on child sexual abuse was thus effectively suppressed.
To accept psychoanalytic theory, however, was to negate the client’s reality and to place the clinician in the role of expert. These experts, then, were thought to know more than the clients themselves about their clients’ reality. Patients who disagreed with their clinicians’ interpretations that their sexual abuse was simply a fantasy were said to be experiencing resistance. Even when clinicians acknowledged the sexual abuse, victims were often blamed for seducing their fathers so that they might fulfill their incestuous fantasies.
This emphasis on intrapsychic versus extrapsychic phenomena in the etiology of the victim’s psychopathology also influenced the continued blaming of victims, effectively silencing them. As Rush states: Any attempt on the part of the child or her family to expose the violator also exposes her own alleged innate sexual motives and shames her more than the offender; concealment is the only recourse. The dilemma of the sexual abuse of children has provided a system of foolproof emotional blackmail: if the victim incriminates the abuser, she incriminates herself: Finally, by blaming the victim, the social environment could then be held blameless. Westerlund states: When Freud relegated women’s reports of sexual abuse by their fathers to fantasy, he.. .claimed a biological determinant rather than a sociocultural determinant for female neurosis.
The incestuous wish for the father was to be seen as inherent in the daughter’s nature, the result of her physical decadency and intrinsic biological inferiority. Seduction fantasies were inevitable, they were representations of the innate female need to compensate themselves for their lack of a penis ….Freud was seduced into and seduced others into protecting the sexual offender and thus betrayed the sexual victim.
Freud advanced his original seduction theory after discovering that many of his “hysterical” female clients were reporting histories of incestuous abuse. He was then confronted with the knowledge that many fathers, possibly even his own, sexually abused their daughters. Given the opportunity to publicly identify this behavior in some fathers, he reneged, choosing instead to define “normal” behavior as girls having precocious sexual wishes that had to be fulfilled through vivid fantasy lives.
He thus effectively colluded with a society that wished to deny the existence of child sexual abuse, while modeling a pattern of removing blame from the offender and placing it on the victim.
“With Freud’s retraction of the seduction theory, he left behind at once the simple explanation for the trauma, his endorsement of the intrinsic strengths of the post-traumatic patient, and his intrepid strategies for undoing the traumatic effects“. Possibly in no other clinical population has one person had such a significant and detrimental effect on the outcome of so many. With his reversal of the seduction theory, he colluded with a society not willing to know the truth.
THE MIDDLE PERIOD: 1900 THROUGH 1970
Most of Freud’s many followers continued to embrace the Oedipus complex and its rationale for reports of child sexual abuse. Of note, however, two of the most distinguished of his followers, Carl Jung and Otto Rank, either broke with Freud or denounced his seduction theory. Interestingly, both men, as children, had probably been sexually abused. Goldwert suggests that their sexual abuse may have been one reason they came to resist Freud’s emphasis on sexuality and the Oedipus complex.
Then in 1932, Ferenczi, one of Freud’s most cherished colleagues, presented a paper even over the objections of Freud that suggested that children were being sexually abused (Summit). In his “Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child,” Ferenczi addressed not only the sexual abuse, but also the denial of this abuse by the adult world. Shortly thereafter, Freud and the professional community denounced Ferenczi for attempting to revive interest in the importance of childhood sexual assault and after Ferenczi’s death, with Freud’s agreement, the publication was suppressed. Although he may have been an early proponent of child sexual abuse victims, Ferenczi also had his own significant problems. Tabin suggests that these problems included “sexual play with his own medical patients” and “exchang[ing] kisses with his patients as a part of their treatment”, although these incidents may have occurred earlier in his career. The confusing information again suggests that the exact historical events are unclear and are open to the interpretation of the presenter. Although Masson convincingly argues that Ferenczi was attempting to revive interest in child sexual abuse, even over the objections of Freud and other psychoanalysts, other viewpoints do exist.
For the next 30 years, hardly a word in the psychiatric community was said about sexual abuse. Typical of the few writings of this period were two studies by Bender, who recognized that the incest had occurred, but placed the blame for the abuse on the seductive nature of the daughter. For example, in 1937, Bender and Blau wrote that they frequently considered “the possibility that the child might have been the actual seducer rather than the one innocently seduced”. Even 15 years later, Bender and Grugett concluded that “it was highly probable that the child had used his charm in the role of the seducer”.
The next major event occurred in the 1950s when Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, and Gebhard published a survey reporting that 24% of the 4,441 female participants were, as children, sexually abused by adult men. Even though the large majority of these victims reported being frightened by this experience, Kinsey et al. stated instead, in a famous quote, “It is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched, or disturbed at seeing the genitalia of other persons, or disturbed at even more specific sexual contacts”. They suggested instead that the children were disturbed more by the reactions of the adults who discovered the contact than by the contact itself. Kinsey et al. were concerned, however, about the offenders who were often imprisoned for “accidental exposure of the genitalia while intoxicated, for nude swimming, and for the bestowal of ‘grandfatherly affection”’. Between 1940 and 1965, three other nonrandom surveys reported that between 17% and 28% of respondents were sexually abused as children.
Even after these surveys were published, however, the scope of the problem of child sexual abuse, although more clearly defined, was largely ignored by both the professional and lay communities. This era was thus largely marked by the suppression and distortion of information concerning the scope of child sexual abuse.
1970s and 1980s
While no clear line divides this earlier era of suppression and distortion from the modern era in which the scope of child sexual abuse was acknowledged, it probably occurred sometime in the 1970s. During this period, several key events occurred. The C. Henry Kempe National Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect opened, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) was established, and NCCAN funded the first comprehensive study on the incidence of child abuse and neglect (NIS-1). Then in 1978, Russell conducted the first random community prevalence survey, consisting of a sample of 930 adult women in the San Francisco area and found that 38% of the respondents had experienced childhood contact sexual abuse. Because of the methodological rigor of her study (Bolen & Scannapieco), it was difficult to discount, even though it did generate considerable controversy. By the early 1980s, studies of child sexual abuse were beginning to proliferate, and the knowledge base began to develop rapidly.
What could account for this sudden interest in child sexual abuse? First may have been the impact of the Vietnam War and the political and social environment of the late 1960s and 1970s. This was a period of profound social consciousness-raising as society “grappled with the moral dilemmas posed by the Vietnam War” and all it represented (Vander Mey & Neff. No longer was the status quo taken for granted, but it was often the impetus for controversy and rebellion. Social consciousness-raising and revolution in thought were rampant. Within this socio-cultural context, it was probably far more difficult to suppress the “discovery” of child sexual abuse.
Another important factor was the developing feminist movement, which brought with it a heightened sensitivity to issues of females. Florence Rush’s book, The Best Kept Secret, was published in 1980, followed in 1981 by Judith Herman’s classic study on father-daughter incest. These and other feminist writings suggested that child sexual abuse was symptomatic and a direct derivative of living in a patriarchal society. Sexual abuse was conceptualized as a symptom of a greater problem-a male sense of entitlement to use females and children for sexual enjoyment (Herman). Sexual abuse of children and rape of females were thus conceptualized similarly. Consequently, while others were attempting to understand why child sexual abuse was so prevalent, feminists were instead attempting to understand why more children were not sexually abused. As Herman stated in a later feminist analysis of sexual assault, if, as many feminists argue, the social definition of sexuality involves the erotization of male dominance and female submission, then the use of coercive means to achieve sexual conquest may represent a crude exaggeration of prevailing norms, but not a departure from them….The unanswered question posed by feminists is not why some men rape, but why most men do not.
By the end of the 1980s, the scope of the problem of child sexual abuse was more clearly defined. Several random community surveys (Russell & Wyatt) and even a national prevalence survey (Timnick) had now been conducted. While prevalence rates for child sexual abuse differed based upon the studies’ methodologies, one fact was certain: Child sexual abuse, both for male and female children, was a substantial problem.
This knowledge brought with it a significant professional response, and numerous treatment centers were established for child and adult victims. Clinicians became sensitive to preventing what they termed “system-induced trauma” to victims (Conte). Child sexual abuse also came to be viewed as a multidisciplinary problem. Treatment, evaluation, and assessment protocol were developed, and the response to child sexual abuse across all mental health professions burgeoned. While professionals were now trying to respond to the scope of the problem of child sexual abuse, however, empirical knowledge lagged. Studies in the 1980s were largely descriptive, answering broad questions about who and how bad. They were not yet sophisticated enough to answer questions about better treatment or assessment protocol. This lack of an empirical base for clinical protocols thus set the stage for the 1990s.
1990s
The climate of the 1990s can be framed by a single word-backlash. This backlash started as a series of controversies over the developing knowledge base, with two areas receiving particular attention. The first issue was whether females were being under identified as offenders. The second issue was whether mothers involved in custody or divorce disputes were falsely and maliciously charging their ex-partners with sexually abusing their child. Shortly, however, controversies began erupting concerning the techniques used by clinicians. In probably the first major attack, clinicians were accused of leading young children to make false charges of ritual abuse. In the 1990s these attacks on clinicians gained in momentum and became more generalized so that clinicians working with both children and adults were now involved. Clinicians working with children were accused of using aggressive, suggestive, and leading techniques that placed the veracity of the child’s disclosure into jeopardy. Clinicians working with adult clients were accused of leading their clients to falsely disclose histories of childhood sexual abuse. Regretfully, many of these attacks were hostile and even vicious.
While much has been written concerning this backlash, it is beyond the scope of this book to review this substantial literature. More salient to this book is the need to frame the backlash within the ideology of the 1980s and 1990s and to understand why the environment of the 1990s was ripe for a backlash.
The first reason that the climate was ripe for a backlash is the state of empirical research in the 1980s. In relation to the needs of clinicians and others directly involved in the assessment and identification of victims, the empirical knowledge base for child sexual abuse was clearly inadequate. The development of a knowledge base is complex, with the beginning phase marked by descriptive and exploratory research. Only then does research move to answering questions framed in a more sophisticated manner. Research in child sexual abuse is so new that there simply has not been enough time to develop an empirical base with sufficient breadth and depth.
This problem has been inevitable given the short history of the empirical base. Because of the seriousness of the issue of child sexual abuse, however, clinicians were forced to make clinical judgments beyond the limits of the empirical research base available. Inevitably, these judgments were questioned. One reason for the backlash, therefore, is to ask the important question: What is the basis for clinical judgments? Regretfully, however, this discussion has often been pointed and personal.
A second reason for the backlash was explored by Olafson, Corwin, and Summit. It is their thesis that a cycle of discovery and suppression of child sexual abuse over time exists. In their view, the knowledge of child sexual abuse is so overwhelming that it must be denied. They state: If we were really to take into account the role sexual coercion and violence play in shaping human culture and personal identity, fundamental structures of thought could well be shaken and changed. Such great shifts in world view unsettle even those whose privileges and self-images are not directly threatened by them (Kuhn). Indeed, information about the prevalence and impact of sexual abuse may constitute unwelcome news on all shades of the political spectrum ….The full realization that child sexual victimization is as common and as noxious as current research suggests would necessitate costly efforts to protect children from sexual assault.
It remains to be seen whether the current backlash will succeed in resuppressing awareness of sexual abuse ….If this occurs, it will not happen because child sexual abuse is peripheral to major social interests, but because it is so central that as a society we choose to reject our knowledge of it rather than make the changes in our thinking, our institutions, and our daily lives that sustained awareness of child sexual victimization demands.
A final reason for this backlash is similar, but framed within a feminist perspective. As Olafson et al. state, “It can be argued that the intensity of the current debate is fueled by the defense of gender and professional privilege and hierarchy”. This quote speaks to one of the foremost statistics of child sexual abuse-that approximately 95% of offenders are male, whereas approximately 70% of victims are female. Further, with 30% to 40% of all girls being sexually abused prior to their 18th birthday (Bolen & Scannapieco), “common sense would suggest that some comparable percentage of the male population has been doing the victimizing” (Herman). While Herman’s statement may be somewhat of an exaggeration, as most offenders abuse multiple children, it is probable that a significant minority of men within society has committed, or are at risk to commit, sexual abuse.
To internalize this knowledge is paramount to a social revolution. One of the hallmarks of patriarchy is that it is founded upon the premise of the benevolent male taking care of the less-positioned female. History, however, suggests that the image of the benevolent patriarch is a myth. Instead, the prevalence of child sexual abuse suggests that the more likely reality may be one of male entitlement, male domination, and male subjugation of females and children. To truly understand the scope of child sexual abuse thus brings with it a responsibility to advocate, not only for the safety of children, but for the reform of basic tenets that undergird modern society and that may foster child sexual abuse-something the privileged majority do not willingly seek, as their power base would be disrupted. Instead, it becomes critical that the scope of the problem of child sexual abuse be suppressed.
In this context, the current backlash is about a far greater controversy than simply whether children and adults create or are implanted with false memories, whether leading questions influence victims, whether dissociative disorders can be induced, and all the other issues that have come to the fore in recent years. These controversies are better flamed as screen issues for a far greater and underlying issue-that of the basic structure and privilege of members within society
