NCJ Number
94818
Date Published
1978
Length
380 pages
Annotation
This book reviews both published and previously unreported information on the causes and effects of incest, showing how incestuous experiences in childhood often result in social, sexual, and psychological adjustment difficulties in adolescence and adulthood.
Abstract
Following a survey of anthropological and sociological views on the origin and maintenance of the incest taboo, the book assesses various strategies for doing research on overt incest behavior. The next chapter details the data collection methods used in the author's study of overt incest which was conducted at a Los Angeles psychiatric clinic that contracts to provide services to employee groups who have elected to include prepaid psychiatric care in their health insurance. It briefly describes the 58 cases -- 47 females and 11 males -- in the psychotherapy sample and a control group of nonincestuous clinic patients. The next three chapters are devoted to an extensive description of father-daughter incest, its causes, the course of the incest 'affair,' and its immediate and long-term effects. The book also discusses incest between brother and sister, uncle and niece, grandfather and granddaughter, and mother and son, comparing causal factors and effects with father-daughter incest. A separate chapter focuses on homosexual incest, father-son and brother-brother, and notes that no reports exist in the clinical literature on female homosexual relationships within the nuclear family. A discussion of multiple incest patterns emphasizes that such cases are quite common and that a small minority of women who have been involved in father-daughter incest may transmit incest to the next generation by setting up their own daughters for incest. Treatment recommendations address prevention, detection and case handling, and treatment of both immediate and long-term aftereffects. Tables, approximatley 100 references, and an index are supplied.