What You Can Change _. And What You Can't - Martin E. Seligman [166]
6. A. Browne and D. Finkelohr, “Impact of Child Sexual Abuse: A Review of the Research,” Psychological Bulletin 99 (1986): 66–77; and K. Alter-Reid, M. Gibbs, J. Lachenmeyer, et al., “Sexual Abuse of Children: A Review of the Empirical Findings,” Clinical Psychology Review 6 (1986): 249–66, both provide good reviews. J. Herman, D. Russell, and K. Trocki, “Long-term Effects of Incestuous Abuse in Childhood,” American Journal of Psychiatry 143 (1986): 1293–96, is a good example of the genre.
In one of the only studies to play off family pathology against the effect of childhood sexual abuse per se, no long-term effect of childhood sexual abuse could be found over and above associated family pathology. See M. Nash, T. Hulsey, M. Sexton, T. Harralson, and W. Lambert, “Long-term Sequelae of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Perceived Family Environment, Psychopathology, and Dissociation,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 61 (1993): 276–83. This leads to the curmudgeonly skepticism in the next paragraph.
7. D. Finkelhor, “Early and Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: An Update,” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 5 (1990): 325–30.
8. See D. Finkelhor, “Early and Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse,” for a recent review.
Three longitudinal studies are R. Gomes-Schwartz, J. Horowitz, and A. Cardarelli, Child Sexual Abuse: The Initial Effects (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1990); A. Bentovim, P. Boston, and A. Van Elburg, “Child Sexual Abuse—Children and Families Referred to a Treatment Project and the Effects of Intervention,”. British Medical Journal 295 (1987): 1453–57; J. Conte, “The Effects of Sexual Abuse on Children: Results of a Research Project,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 528 (1988): 310–26.
For the better prognosis in children than in adults, see R. Hanson, “The Psychological Impact of Sexual Assault on Women and Children: A Review,” Annals of Sex Research 3 (1990): 187–232.
For ripping off the scars and even manufacturing them out of whole cloth, see D. Kent, “Remembering ‘Repressed’ Abuse,” APS Observer 5 (1992): 6–7.
For the effect of lengthy litigation, see D. Runyan, M. Everson, D. Edelsohn, et al., “Impact of Legal Intervention on Sexually Abused Children,” Journal of Pediatrics 113 (1988): 647–53.
9. The first scenario is from D. Quinton and M. Rutter, Parenting Breakdown: The Making and Breaking of Intergenerational Links (Aldershot, Eng.: Gower, 1988), 93–108. The second scenario is from A. Caspi and G. Elder, “Emergent Family Patterns: The Intergenerational Construction of Problem Behaviors and Relationships,” in R. Hinde and J. Stevenson-Hinde, eds., Relationships Within Families: Mutual Influences (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 218–40.
10. There is one disorder that seems to fit the inner-child premises well: multiple personality. This typically seems to begin with severe childhood abuse—rape or attempted murder—from which the child withdraws by creating another personality to endure it. This tactic relieves pain, and so, when further trauma strikes, new personalities are created. See E. Bliss, “Multiple Personalities: Report of Fourteen Cases with Implications for Schizophrenia and Hysteria,” Archives of General Psychiatry 37 (1980): 1388–97. Fortunately, this disorder is quite rare, and there is no evidence that this kind of etiology applies to ordinary depression, anxiety, or other common adult problems.
11. For a good review of this large literature, see R. Plomin and D. Daniels, “Why Are Children in the Same Family So Different from One Another?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (1987): 1–60, and R. Plomin, “Environment and Genes,” American Psychologist 44 (1989): 105–11. For some of the literature on the small effects of child rearing on adult personality, see M. Heinstein, “Behavioral Correlates of Breast-Bottle Regimes Under Varying Parent-Infant Relationships,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 28 (1963); J. Whiting and I. Child, Child-Training