NCJ Number
94451
Date Published
1982
Length
210 pages
Annotation
A psychiatrist discusses how physicians and other helping professionals can identify and treat children and adults who have experienced incest at some stage in life, using actual case examples to indicate appropriate psychiatric and medical symptoms and interventions.
Abstract
The text alerts the reader to important diagnostic issues, evaluative strategies, and pitfalls in investigating an incest allegation. The appropriate medical examination procedures for child incest victims are detailed, and followup care is suggested. Director quotations from family members and drawings done by child victims and nonvictims are examined as clinical clues to the family's inner realities. One section describes how incest victims' needs vary with the victim's age at the time of the report. Another section describes girls and women whose incest experiences only came to medical attention months or years after the event and who exhibited delayed reactions to incest. Syndrome of simulated neglect observed in 9-year-olds who had been physically and sexually abused before age 5 is described. The test also discusses a symptom cluster of hysterical seizures, runaway behavior, promiscuity, and suicide attempts in teenage incest victims and compares clinical observations to Navajo and Anglo-European folk beliefs that connect these symptoms with incest. Another article examines the occurrence of suicide attempts after incest is revealed, noting that most suicide attempts in the study sample occurred in adolescents aged 14 to 16 whose accusations had not been believed by the family. The text presents a case report of a victim of mother-daughter incest whose temporary homosexual adjustment adolescence seemed to result from the incest experience. Moreover, the text reviews the genetic hazards of first-degree incestuous matings and describes the clinical problems that develop when teenagers become pregnant by abusers. The book describes adult incest victims whose children are now being abused and presents a number of reasons why physicians should report child abuse. Chapter references, folklore tales, charts, drawings, and an index are included.