Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.
(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)
GENERATING A HANDBOOK FOR THE ADULT SURVIVOR OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE (ASSAULT, VICTIMIZATION)
Abstract
Survivors of child sexual abuse are often plagued by a miriad of residual effects which have the potential to limit their functioning and interfere with their interpersonal relationships. Twenty-three successful survivors were interviewed to determine what problems they attributed to the abuse and the process they had gone through to reach some degree of wholeness. Eight therapists of survivors were interviewed to determine how they treat past victims of sexual abuse. The content of these interviews was used to generate a book directed to the layperson who might be a survivor of sexual abuse, friend/family member of such a survivor or a therapist interested in treating these individuals. Major themes addressed are: a definition of sexual abuse, a discussion of who abuses children, outline of the residual effects experienced by survivors from both a male and female perspective, a discussion of therapies and other aids for breaking the cycle of continued victimization, suggestions of what survivors might experience while going through therapy, a consideration of the complications of sharing the facts of the abuse with the survivor's children, an exploration of the difficulties in learning to trust again and a discussion of what is meant by a "true" survivor. The book is interwoven with first person accounts of survivor's experiences with both incest and extra-familial abuse. Sexual abuse is seen in the context of other assaults on childhood such as alcoholism and physical abuse.
Subject Area
Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology
Recommended Citation
TOWER, CYNTHIA CROSSON, "GENERATING A HANDBOOK FOR THE ADULT SURVIVOR OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE (ASSAULT, VICTIMIZATION)" (1985). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8602702.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8602702