Sibling incest: a Hong Kong experience

OBJECTIVE: The one case study intends to gain a preliminary understanding of the long term impact of older brother-younger sister incest in Hong Kong RESULTS: The adult survivor's experience did cohere with Western studies to date on age of onset, symptomatology, and feelings such as shame and guilt. The symptoms and negative feelings might also be the results of inaccessible parents and negative parental response at disclosure. Specific contextual factors such as patriarchal power structure, strong moral codes, and secrecy of family shame in Chinese culture may have contributed to the victim's inability to protect herself from her older brother's sexual advances. CONCLUSION: This case study calls for a multi-dimensional, and interactive rather than a unidimensional and unidirectional view to explore into the individual, familial, and contextual factors that may contribute to sibling incest and a delay in disclosure. The brief analysis is also a plea for systematic research in the Hong Kong context and comparative studies that take into account cultural specificity.     

Evaluation of a group intervention using a feminist approach for women experiencing sexual abuse

OBJECTIVE: The present study evaluates a group intervention using a feminist approach for women experiencing sexual abuse in childhood or adulthood in order to measure changes associated with participation in a group intervention and verifies whether effects are maintained over time. The present study relates effects of the group intervention in terms of psychological distress, depression symptoms, post-traumatic stress symptoms and feelings of guilt and helplessness. METHOD: The sample consists of 26 women participating in a group intervention offered by sexual assault centers in Quebec (CALACS - Centre d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel). RESULTS: Results show significant differences between pretest and post-test scores obtained one week following the end of the group intervention and gains are maintained at follow-up 3 months later. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that participation in the group intervention is associated with a reduction of psychological distress, depression symptoms, post-traumatic stress symptoms and feelings of guilt and helplessness in adult women reporting sexual abuse.     

Incest survivors: the relation of their perceptions of their parents and their own parenting attitudes

The present study examined the child-rearing attitudes of incest and nonincest child sexual abuse survivors and their perceptions of their own parents' behavior. From a sample of women with a history of child sexual abuse, 40 women with children completed questionnaires designed to assess their own and their parents' child-rearing behavior in terms of the dimensions of parental acceptance and control. The data indicated that women from incestuous backgrounds had more negative perceptions of their fathers and mothers in terms of acceptance and control than women abused by men who were not related to them. Moreover, incest victims who perceived their mothers negatively endorsed autonomy promotion in their own attitudes toward child rearing. The findings are discussed in terms of (1) the lack of positive parenting models when relations with both parents are experienced as negative, (2) incest survivors' conflicts about their own early maturity, and (3) the relation of these findings to the tendency for intergenerational repetition of father-daughter incest.     

Parenting difficulties among adult survivors of father-daughter incest.

Women with a history of father-daughter incest as children often report difficulty in parenting their own children. This study examined the self-reported parenting experience and practices of women who were incest victims as children. Since many incest victims are also children of alcoholics, we compared their reports of parenting with those of women whose fathers were alcoholic but not sexually abusive, and to women who had no known risk during their childhood. The findigns were that incest survivors reported significantly less confidence and less sense of control as parents than nonrisk mothers. In addition, they reported significantly less support in the parental partnership with their spouses, and reported being less consistent and organized, and making fewer maturity demands on their children. The findings are discussed in terms of the incest survivor's sense of inefficacy and loss of control, the potential of the marital relationship to buffer the adverse effects of growing up in the dysfunctional, incestuous family, and future research directions.     

Prior incest in mothers of abused children

Previous studies have shown that most abusing parents have a history of physical abuse or neglect in their own childhoods. There is little data on the frequency of prior sexual abuse among parents who physically or sexually abuse their children. Many case reports describe the uncovering of a prior incest experience in a parent during the investigation of the child's current incest accusation, but it is unclear how frequently this occurs. One hundred mothers of abused children were asked about sexual incidents that occurred before age 18; the control group consisted of 500 normal women from the same community who were surveyed during meetings of various voluntary organizations. Age and ethnicity did not differ in the two groups. Of the mothers of abused children, 24% reported a prior incest experience, whereas only 3% of the control women reported prior incest. This eightfold difference was highly significant. The 34 mothers from families where sexual abuse was occurring were no more likely to report prior incest than were the 66 mothers from families where physical abuse occurred. The one case of genital mutilation of a child occurred in a family where both parents had been incest victims. Case studies indicate that the parent who has been an incest victim has inhibitions and fears about tenderness, traceable to the childhood incest experience, which are important in the development of either physical abuse or sexual abuse in the family.     

Brother-sister incest - father-daughter incest: a comparison of characteristics and consequences.

OBJECTIVE: One group of women who were sexually abused by brothers and a second group who were sexually abused by fathers are compared with the intent to identify the differing characteristics of each type of abuse and the effects of the abuse on their adult functioning. Our hypothesis was that there would indeed be differences in the characteristics of the abuse and its effects, and that this would necessitate differing treatment strategies. METHOD: Surveys were distributed to women attending support groups for incest survivors. Of the 62 women completing questionnaires, 14 women (23%) had been sexually abused by a brother. A similar number of women (15) who had been sexually abused by their fathers were chosen from the overall sample for comparison. RESULTS: The absence of the father as a vital force in family life played a key role in the sexual abuse of women by their brothers in every case. The duration of the sexual abuse for brother-abused women and father-abused women was lengthy. The characteristics, including use of force, are equally as serious for sisters as for daughters. The family circumstances surrounding the abuse were examined for both groups and the results yielded a fuller understanding of the incestuous family. Despite an appearance of normalcy, the level of family-wide disturbances, for example substance abuse, mental illness and pervasive family-wide violence were profound for both groups. In this study, we also examine the effects in adulthood of the serious disruption of childhood developmental phases for both brother-abused and father-abused women, taking into account the incidence of substance abuse, depression, suicidality, and eating disorders. CONCLUSIONS: The authors conclude that the characteristics and consequences of brother-sister incest are of equal seriousness to those of father-daughter incest. This would suggest that brother-sister incest is one of the current blind spots in incest research, and one that we cannot afford to ignore. In-depth knowledge of the dynamics and effects of brother-sister incest suggest specific treatment strategies are indeed necessary and these are discussed in this paper.     

Perceptions of parenting versus parent-child interactions among incest survivors

OBJECTIVES: Although women with histories of child sexual abuse (CSA) perceive themselves as less competent mothers and report greater parenting difficulties than nonabused women, few investigators have actually observed the parenting behaviors of CSA survivors. The primary aim of this study was to examine whether incest history was related to maternal perceptions of parenting efficacy and interactional patterns with their children. The secondary aim of this study was to explore the constructs of internal working models of relationships and maternal psychological adjustment as potential mediators of the relation between incest history and parenting. METHODS: A community sample of 17 incest survivors, 18 nonabused women and their 3-6 year-old children participated. Mothers completed self-report measures of parenting efficacy, parental bonding (i.e., internal working models of relationships), and psychological adjustment. In addition, mothers interacted with their children in a problem-solving task. RESULTS: Although incest survivors reported less parenting self-efficacy than did nonabused mothers, their interactional styles with their children were positive overall and comparable to those of nonabused mothers. Specifically, survivors displayed moderate to high levels of support, assistance, and confidence, and their children showed high levels of affection towards their mothers. Incest survivors reported less bonding with their own mothers in childhood and poorer current psychological adjustment. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that incest survivors' perceptions of their parenting abilities may be more negative than their actual parenting behaviors.     

Assessment of symptoms in adult survivors of incest: a factor analytic study of the Responses to Childhood Incest Questionnaire

Although research has established the long-term damaging effects of incest, these efforts have suffered from the lack of valid, standardized assessment instruments. The present study reports on the construction and factor validation of the Response to Childhood Incest Questionnaire (RCIQ), a self-report instrument that assesses a range of commonly reported symptoms experienced by adult survivors of incest. A clinical population of 104 adult women who had experienced childhood or adolescent incest completed the RCIQ. A factor analysis of the RCIQ items revealed seven factors which corresponded to hypothesized stress response themes experienced by survivors of traumatic events. These factors include vulnerability and isolation, fear and anxiety, anger and betrayal, reaction to the abuser, sadness and loss, and powerlessness. In addition, four factors corresponded to the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder: intrusive thoughts, avoidance and intrusive emotions, detachment, and emotional control and numbness. The usefulness of the RCIQ as a pre- and post-treatment measure and the need for further research is discussed.     

Restoring order: Interpreting suicide through a Burkean lens

This Burkean analysis of suicide notes argues that suicide is motivated by an innate human desire for “Order.” The notes analyzed in this study were composed by individuals who portrayed their lives as filled with much chaos and pain. In Burke's words, they viewed their lives as highly disordered. Their final communiques indicate that they saw suicide as a way to overcome the tremendous feelings of guilt and/or shame associated with that disorder. In a smaller number of cases, the deceased suggested that suicide allowed them to transcend their painful circumstances, thereby allowing them to avoid the assignment of guilt or shame. As the rhetoric of suicide notes reveals, suicide functions as an agency by which their authors believe a sense of “control” can be reestablished and, ultimately, “Order” restored to their worlds.     

Long-term effects of incest: life events triggering mental disorders in female patients with sexual abuse in childhood.

The authors studied several psychosocial, psychosomatic, and psychodynamic factors in 33 female psychiatric patients who had been victims of incest. Abuse was almost exclusively severe and prolonged. Three quarters of the female patients had been abused by their biological fathers or stepfathers. Sexual abuse experiences in childhood are connected with feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and powerlessness. Together with a lack of support on the part of the mother, these experiences lead to ego weakness, an autoplastic mode of coping with aggression and to patterns of objectal relationships which predispose them to object loss. The links between a girl's traumatic experiences in relationships and her vulnerability to separation in later life and their importance for the incidence of mental disorders will be discussed on the basis of Bowlby's attachment theory.     

Effects of older brother-younger sister incest: a study of the dynamics of 17 cases.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of older brother-younger sister incest from the perspective of the women who experienced it in childhood or adolescent years. Dynamics in the families-of-origin were also explored, as these related or contributed to the effects from the incest. Seventeen women were interviewed, using an in-depth, semi-structured interview. Four self-report objective instruments were also administered that measure dynamics in the family-of-origin and symptomatology that is often associated with the effects of trauma. Interview and objective data were analyzed by systematically organizing the women's perceptions and conceptualizations into common themes. All of the women's families of origin were described as dysfunctional. Common effects reported included mistrust of men and women, chronic low or negative self-esteem, sexual response difficulties, and intrusive thoughts of the incest. Women regarded individual therapy, talking with supportive family and friends, and validating themselves as victims at the time of the incest as ways in which they have helped themselves to deal with the effects of the incest. These results have important implications for therapy, including serious consideration of the impact and contribution of this kind of incest on reported symptomatology, and on emerging issues and conflicts in the therapeutic process.     

Children's Understanding of Guild and Shame

Children's conceptions of the self-conscious emotions guilt versus shame were investigated. In Study 1, 10–12-year-old children answered questions about scenarios that should elicit feelings of guilt and/or shame (moral transgressions and social blunders). In Study 2, 7–9- and 10–12-year-old children completed a sorting task to ascertain the features they associate with guilt and shame. Feelings of guilt were aroused by moral norm violations. Guilt feelings were also seen as involving an approach-avoidance conflict with respect to the victim, self-criticism, remorse, desire to make amends, and fear of punishment. Feelings of shame resulted from both moral transgressions and social blunders. Younger children associated shame with embarrassment, blushing, ridicule, and escape. Older children additionally characterized shame as feeling stupid, being incapable of doing things right, and not being able to look at others.     

Effects of mother-son incest and positive perceptions of sexual abuse experiences on the psychosocial adjustment of clinic-referred men

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective was to examine the long-term impact of mother-son incest and positive initial perceptions of sexual abuse experiences on adult male psychosocial functioning. METHOD: Sixty-seven clinic-referred men with a history of sexual abuse participated. The participants completed self-report measures regarding their current psychosocial functioning and described the nature of their sexual and physical abuse experiences during childhood. RESULTS: Seventeen men reported mother-son incest, and these men endorsed more trauma symptoms than did other sexually abused men, even after controlling for a history of multiple perpetrators and physical abuse. Mother-son incest was likely to be subtle, involving behaviors that may be difficult to distinguish from normal caregiving (e.g., genital touching), despite the potentially serious long-term consequences. Twenty-seven men recalled positive or mixed initial perceptions of the abuse, including about half of the men who had been abused by their mothers. These men reported more adjustment problems than did men who recalled purely negative initial perceptions. CONCLUSIONS: Mother-son incest and positive initial perceptions of sexual abuse experiences both appear to be risk factors for more severe psychosocial adjustment problems among clinic-referred men.     

Incest victims: inadequate help by professionals

Two surveys studied the inadequacies of professional assistance given to incest victims. In the investigation 130 professionals and 50 adult women victimized as children were interviewed. With respect to young, recent victims, the assistance given was hampered by institutional distrust, the inability of individual professionals to stop the ongoing incest, as well as the frequent breaking off of contact by the young girls themselves. The professionals who helped adult, former incest victims were hampered by shortcomings in knowledge and skills as well as their own emotional resistance. On the average, these adult victims consulted 3.5 professionals over many years. The "long march through the consultation rooms" and the various complaints of the women regarding the professionals are described. In conclusion, recommendations for improvement in assisting incest victims are suggested.     

An exploration of family and individual profiles following father-daughter incest

This paper presents the results of a range of psychometric assessments which attempted to identify family and individual variables associated with father-daughter incest. Psychometric self-report measures were used to examine differences between families in which incest had been confirmed and a matched comparison group. Significant differences between the members of the incest and the comparison groups included behavioral and self-esteem problems in the daughters and differences in the familial environments of the two groups. Daughters who had been sexually abused reported lower levels of self-esteem about their intellectual and school status. Mothers in the incest group reported that their daughters had more conduct problems than the comparison mothers. The incest families were generally reported to be higher in conflict and organization and lower in cohesion, expressiveness, and active recreation. No differences between groups were found for levels of marital adjustment, self-esteem in mothers, or overall level of psychopathology in the perpetrators.     

Differentiating incest survivors who self-mutilate

OBJECTIVE: This study was an exploratory analysis of the variables which differentiated incest survivors who self-mutilate from those who do not. METHOD: A sample of women incest survivors (N = 84) were divided into two groups based on the presence or absence of self-mutilation. Participants included both community and clinical populations. A packet consisting of a demographic questionnaire, Sexual Attitudes Survey, Diagnostic Inventory of Personality and Symptoms, Dissociative Events Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory was completed by each participant. RESULTS: Demographic, incest, and family of origin variables distinguished the self-mutilating women from those who did not. These include ethnicity and educational experiences; duration, frequency, and perpetrator characteristics regarding the incest; and multiple abuses, instability, birth order, and loss of mother in one's family of origin. Psychological and physical health concerns also differentiated between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Many variables may differentiate between women incest survivors who self-mutilate from those who do not. A rudimentary checklist to describe the lives of incest survivors who self-mutilate resulted from these findings. The importance of the concept of embodiment is also discussed.     

Mother-daughter incest

Reports of mother-daughter incest are conspicuously absent from the extensive literature on the sexual abuse of children. When homosexual incest has been reported, the relationship usually involves father and son. In some reported cases of father-daughter incest, the mother had an active role in the sexual act. There is one reported case of grandmother-grand-daughter incest. In the present case, the victim, L., entered psychotherapy because of migraine headaches. She was a university student, struggling, ambivalently, to separate from a jealous and possessive mother. She had been involved in several homosexual affairs which had ended with L. rejecting her partner. Early in therapy, she made a self-mutilating suicide attempt. L. was the only child of an older, lower middle class couple. Father was a passive, ineffectual man, overshadowed by L. 's mother. Soon after L. was born, mother and father began sleeping in separate bedrooms. When L. was six years old, mother invited her to share her bed. L. had a room of her own, but was allowed to sleep there only when mother entertained her homosexual lover. L. recalls being extremely jealous of her mother's lover. Starting at age 8, L. recalls awakening to find mother kissing L. on the lips or fondling her breasts. L. thinks that genital fondling also took place while L. was asleep. At age 14 L. insisted that she sleep alone because she felt there was “something wrong” with her relationship with mother. After two years of psychotherapy, L. was able to separate successfully from mother. Soon after this, she rekindled a relationship with a male friend and later married. It can be difficult to distinguish a sexually exploitative mother-daughter relationship from a normal physical closeness that occurs between mothers and female children. This closeness is critical in the development of mothering behaviors in the daughter. Seductive behavior in mothers is more socially tolerated than similar behavior in male caretakers. In some cultures, mothers actively masturbate their nursing infants. In the case of L., the sexual relationship between mother and daughter parallels the patterns seen in father-daughter incest. The incest behavior occurred in the context of a deteriorated husband-wife relationship. L. was confused about whether to relate to mother as a parent or as a sex partner. Sexual contact began when the patient was pre-pubertal and consisted mainly of fondling. L's memories of this contact are vague and dreamlike, and were revealed after a substantial therapeutic relationship had been established. L's subsequent homosexual encounters were a repetition of her seduction by her mother. Less explicit maternal seductions have been implicated in the pathogenesis of female homosexuality. As more women with homosexual life-styles take on the single parenting of daughters, reports of mother-daughter incest may become more common.     

Confronting the incest secret long after the fact: a family study of multiple victimization with strategies for intervention

All eleven adult females in one generation of an extended family had experienced childhood sexual abuse by either a father/uncle or an older cousin/brother. The sexual abuse had been a closely guarded secret of each victim for up to 20 years despite the fact that all of the women had close and frequent involvement in one another's lives. Protection of the young daughter of the cousin/brother provided the impetus for disclosure and a focal point of concern for the adult women whose sexual abuse had been initiated at approximately the same age as the girl. This family's case history is used as a vehicle to discuss intervention strategies for dealing with incest long after the fact with extended family networks.     

In Memoriam

Abstract

There are two major views of cheating. The “general view” states that cheating Is an aspect of general morality. The “specificity hypothesis” considers cheating as a specific type of cultural transgression not related to other forms of transgressions. The purpose of this study was to test the different predictions of the two positions. Thirty male and 60 female Ss between 17 and 30 years of age were given an opportunity to cheat on an exam. Ss then answered a questionnaire which asked questions related to their religions, sexual, drinking and aggressive behavior. Cheating did not correlate with background material, guilt feelings or other transgressive behaviors. The results support a specificity view of cheating.     

爱伦·坡在《厄舍屋的倒塌》中的心理分析方法

本文分析了爱伦·坡的短篇小说《厄舍屋的倒塌》中的主人公罗德里克由变态的爱──乱伦引起的罪恶感和恐惧感,深入到变态心理和下意识的领域中,为读者展示一个丧失正常理智和意识的畸形人的画廊。