The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse Upon Processing
Intimacy-Related Stimuli
VDM Verlag Dr. Müller
(2008-08-21
)
eligible for voucher
ISBN-13:
978-3-639-06719-4
ISBN-10:
3639067193
EAN:
9783639067194
Book language:
English
Blurb/Shorttext:
Adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse suffer a
multitude of long-term effects, including distorted
ideas about sexuality, inappropriate sexualized
behaviors, fragmented identity, and feelings of
powerlessness and betrayal (Olafson & Boat, 2000).
Victimization influences an individual's
self-concept, is associated with increased use of
image-distorting defenses such as dissociation,
denial, and projective identification, and increases
the likelihood of future abuse. The current study
sought to explore the cycle of abuse by examining
implicit and explicit measures of intimacy among
female inpatient and university participants. All
participants completed a modified version of the
Adult Dimensions Inventory (Chaffin, Wherry, Newlin,
Crutchfield, & Dykman, 1997) in an effort to assess
experience of childhood sexual abuse, and three
versions of the Stroop Task: Neutral, General Threat,
and Intimacy-Related. The university participants
also completed the Experiences in Close Relationships
Scale (ECR; Brennan et al., 1998), a self-report
measure of attachment-related anxiety and avoidance.
Results showed that a more intrusive form of sexual
abuse led to a significant impact upon the cognitive
processing of emotion-laden and neutral stimuli.
This impact, however, manifested differently for
inpatient and university participants: sexually
abused inpatient participants tended to avoid
processing information while abused university
participants were distracted by emotion-laden
stimuli. Finally, results showed that within the
university sample there was a greater discrepancy
between implicit and explicit measures of intimacy
among sexually abused participants compared to
non-abused participants.