Child Sexual Abuse: Is the Routine Provision of Psychotherapy Warranted?
Submitted to Social Work
Thomas D. Oellerich, Ph.D., ACSW, LISW, DAPA*
ABSTRACT: This paper addresses the question: is the routine provision of psychotherapy
for child sexual abuse warranted? It reviews the literature on the impact of child sexual
abuse and that on the outcome of child and adolescent psychotherapy. It
concludes that the routine provision of psychotherapy is not warranted and that
child sexual abuse is an area exploited by many professionals for their own
gain. A number of recommendations are made with respect to social workers
dealing with this problem of exploitation.
Neil Jacobson (1995), Director of the Center for Clinical Research in the
Psychology Department, University of Washington, asserted that the conclusion
that psychotherapy is effective is premature. He pointed out that in studies
showing effectiveness, the findings reflect statistical significance which has
little or no bearing on clinical significance. To illustrate this, he offered the
example of a weight loss treatment that produces a statistically significant
average weight loss of 10 pounds. But since the clients entered the study
weighing 300 pounds, this statistically significant weight loss was not
clinically significant. Psychotherapy is supposed to effect a meaningful change, not a minor statistical effect.
Jacobson reported that when psychotherapy outcome is examined in terms of
clinical significance, the results are "disturbing" (p.43). In a
series of studies on conduct disorders in adolescents, marriage counseling for
couples, and anxiety disorders, his research group has
found the recovered patient (the one who shows few or no signs or symptoms of
the initial complaint and believes him- or herself to be "cured")
to be the exception rather than the rule for every type of disorder examined and
for every type of therapy that we have looked at — psychodynamic, behavioral,
cognitive and family therapy. When one considers even more intractable problems,
such as addictive behavior, schizophrenia and personality disorders, the
clinical significance data are even more bleak. The only exception we have found
thus far to these modest recovery rates is the cognitive behavioral treatment of
panic disorder ... (p. 44).
He concluded that, "as an instrument of human change, psychotherapists
have been overselling their product since the days of Freud" (p. 42).
The question can be raised as to whether or not there is an overselling of
psychotherapy in in the area of child sexual abuse. In most settings, children
who have been sexually abused are routinely offered treatment even if
asymptomatic (Beutler, Williams, and Zetzer, 1994; Finkelhor and Berliner, 1995).
Finkelhor and Berliner (1995) estimated that among substantiated cases of
child sexual abuse, from 44 percent to 73 percent receive psychotherapy. A
recent report of the National Institute of Justice (Miller, Cohen, &
Wiersema, 1996), indicated that victims of child sexual abuse were much more
likely than victims of other crimes to receive mental health care. These data
showed that up to 50% and more of child sexual abuse victims receive
mental health care as compared with no more than 4% of victims of other crimes.
One area of concern is that the cost difference is extreme. According to the
report of the National Institute of Justice, the average cost of mental health
services for the typical victim of child sexual abuse was nearly sixty times
greater than that for the victim of another crime ($5,800 vs. less than $100).
A basic question that has not been addressed adequately is whether
substantial mental health care is necessary for the sexually abused or the
allegedly sexually abused. Current practice, according to Beutler, Williams, and Zetzer
(1994), assumes that
child sexual abuse nearly always causes psychological harm and that this harm
requires treatment. Moreover, it assumes that treatment correlates with the
likelihood of mitigation of the psychological harm. Are these assumptions valid?
The Impact of Child Sexual Abuse: A Review
Despite current practice, it is clear that there is a not need for the
routine provision of psychotherapy for the sexually abused. Browne and
Finkelhor (1986), in their review article on the initial and long-term effects
of child sexual abuse, warned against exaggerating the effects of child sexual
abuse. Despite this research, the mental health industry has described child
sexual abuse as "a special destroyer of adult mental health,"
according to Martin Seligman , Past President of the American Psychological
Association, (1994, p.232). However, this is far from proven. According to
Seligman, the existing research indicating harm "abandoned methodological
niceties" (p. 233). These studies are characterized by sampling bias, lack
of adequate control groups, and a failure to consider alternative explanations
of the findings.
Further, Seligman noted that much of this research has been ideologically
driven. This is a point made earlier by Okami (1990). Okami asserted that
adherents to the victimological paradigm have dominated the study of and
response to child sexual abuse. This paradigm is based on the conviction that
the child or adolescent is incapable of experiencing sexual desire or initiating
sexual contact. According to Okami, this conviction, "attributes
participation in peer sexual behavior to 'curiosity' and participation in
adult/non-adult sexual behavior to 'coercion'" (p. 93). Even behavior that
is self-reported as positive by the child or adolescent is defined by the
victimologists as abusive. The victimological paradigm reflects a Victorian
idealization of children as sexless innocents. This is politically correct in
the current sociopolitical climate. It is, however, both historically incorrect (Bullough, 1990) and scientifically
incorrect (Ceci, & Bruck, 1995; Friedrich, Grambsch, Broughton,
Kuiper, & Beilke, 1991; Friedrich, Fisher, Broughton, Houston, & Shafran,
1998; Lamb, & Coakley, 1993). According to Seligman:
"Once the ideology is stripped away, we still remain ignorant about whether sexual abuse in
childhood wreaks damage in adult life and, if so, how much" (p. 234).
The notion that child sexual abuse is a "destroyer" of mental
health has been based largely on studies involving clinical samples (Berliner
& Elliott, 1996). But even these, if objectively considered,
indicated that child sexual abuse is neither necessarily nor usually
psychologically harmful. That is, for the vast majority child sexual abuse is
not a "destroyer" of mental health at any age.
For example, an early review of the literature was conducted by Constantine
(1981). He reviewed 30 studies and found that
20 report at least some subjects without ill effects; 13 of those
conclude that, for the majority of subjects, there is essentially no harm;
and six even identify some subjects for whom, by self-evaluation or other
criteria, the childhood sexual encounter was a positive or possibly
beneficial experience (p. 224).
In his review of 25 studies, Conte (1985), taking issue with
Constantine's using the research "to make a case for 'legitimate instances
of child-adult sex,'" concluded that "a review of the literature
describing the effects of sexual abuse on children leads irrefutably to the
ambiguous conclusion that sexual abuse appears to affect some victims and not
others" (p. 117).
Similarly, Browne and Finkelhor (1986) reviewed 28 studies. They found that
among adults who had experienced child sexual abuse, less than 20 percent
evidenced serious psychopathology. They observed that these findings should
provide comfort to victims since severe long-term harm was not inevitable.
Further, they expressed concern over the efforts of child advocates to exaggerate the
harmful effects for political purposes
because of its potential to harm the victims and their families:
advocates [should] not exaggerate or overstate the intensity or
inevitability of [negative] consequences [because] victims and their
families ... may be further victimized by exaggerated claims about the effects
of sexual abuse (p. 178).
Kendall-Tackett, Williams, and Finkelhor (1993)
reviewed 45 studies on the effects of child sexual abuse. The samples for these studies were drawn primarily from
sexual abuse evaluation or treatment programs. Despite this, Kendall-Tackett et
al. found that up to 49 percent of the sexually abused children evidenced no
psychological harm. They concluded that "the absence of symptoms certainly
cannot be used to rule out sexual abuse. There are too many sexually abused
children who are apparently asymptomatic" (p. 175).
Among the children who were symptomatic, these reviewers found that symptom
abatement occurred for most within two years with or without treatment. These
authors also found that when sexually abused children in treatment were compared
with non-abused children in treatment, the sexually abused were less symptomatic
than their non-abused clinical counterparts.
That psychological harm is neither inevitable nor typical is substantiated by
Rind and Tromovitch (1997). They conducted a meta-analytic review of seven
studies on the effects of child sexual abuse. Unlike prior reviews which were
based primarily on clinical samples, this one involved studies that used
national probability samples: four from the United States, and one each from
Great Britain, Canada, and Spain. The findings indicated that child sexual abuse
"is not associated with pervasive harm and that harm, when it occurs, is
not typically intense" (p. 237).
These findings were confirmed in a later meta-analytic study by Rind,
Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998). This review involved 59 studies of child
sexual abuse using college samples. Again, Rind et al. found that negative effects of child sexual abuse were
neither pervasive nor severe.
Moreover, it has yet to be demonstrated that childhood sexual abuse has any
influence upon the adult personality. For example, Beitchman, Zucker, Hood,
DaCosta, Akrnan, and Cassavia (1992) reviewed 32 studies. While they concluded
that the evidence suggested that child sexual abuse had serious long-term
effects, they noted that it was not clear that these effects were, in fact, due
to child sexual abuse per se (p. 115). Levitt and Pinnell (1995) concluded, based on their review of the literature, that "the
traditionally accepted link between childhood sexual abuse as an isolated cause
and psychopathology in adulthood lacks empirical verification" (p.
151). Along the same line, Pope and Hudson (1995; see also Pope, 1997)
concluded that the existing research was so seriously flawed in this regard that
it was valueless.
However, the recent Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman study (1998) indicated
that child sexual abuse is non-causative. They reported that students who had
been sexually abused were, on average, slightly less well adjusted than the
students who had not been sexually abused. But the poorer adjustment could not
be attributed to the sexual abuse. The child sexual abuse-adjustment relations
became non-significant when family environment was controlled for. The evidence,
then, tends to confirm Seligman's earlier conclusion that
the case for childhood trauma — in anything but its most brutal form —
influencing adult personality is in the minds of the inner-child
advocates. It is not to be found in the data (p. 235).
The empirical evidence lends credence as well to Walters (1975) who earlier
contended that the widespread belief that child sexual abuse necessarily and
usually causes psychological damage is a myth (p. 113). In other words, the
assumption that child sexual abuse typically causes psychological harm requiring
psychotherapy is false.
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy; A Review
Once there is a referral for therapy a second question is raised: will it be
effective — even if it is indicated? Current practice assumes it is.
Sadly,
there is no empirical proof that therapy for the sexually abused is effective
((Beutler et al., 1994; Reid, 1996). Hollenberg & Ragan (1991), in their
summary of all the child sexual abuse projects funded by NCCAN from 1985 to
1990, reported that most of the information on treatment efficacy was based on
anecdotal case studies or descriptions of treatment programs rather than
systematic investigations (p. 93).
More recently, Finkelhor and Berliner (1995) reviewed 29 outcome
studies on the effectiveness of treatments for the sexually abused. Of the 29
studies, seventeen used a pre-test—post-test design. While nearly all reported
positive improvement, it cannot be said that the improvement was due to the
treatment. These authors note that longitudinal studies have shown that
sexually abused children improve over time with or without treatment (p. 1409;
see also Kendall-Tackett et al., 1993, p.171).
Three of the 7 experimental design studies compared treatment and
no-treatment groups. These found significant effects of treatment, but the
reviewers commented that their "relatively small-scale designs ... detract
from their scientific weight" (p. 1414). Among the quasi-experimental studies
which had equivalent groups (3 of the 5 reviewed) there was no advantage for
children receiving therapy compared with children not receiving therapy. While
these reviewers took an optimistic posture with respect to the outcome of
therapeutic intervention, they noted that current research is methodologically
flawed and concluded that the effectiveness of sexual abuse treatment has yet to
be proven (p.1415).
However, the weight of the evidence in this review parallels those found in
naturalistic or real-world (as opposed to laboratory) studies on the effectiveness of child
and adolescent psychotherapy, namely, that child and adolescent psychotherapy
have little or no effect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999; see
also Weisz, Weiss, & Donenberg, 1992; Weisz, Weiss, Han, Granger, &
Morton, 1995). These findings are reinforced by evidence from studies on
continuum of care programs for children and adolescents. One of the more
ambitious of these was the Fort Bragg Project (Bickman, 1996). The U.S. Army
spent 80 million dollars to demonstrate that "a continuum of mental health
and substance abuse services for children and adolescents was more
cost-effective than services delivered in the more typical fragmented
system" (p. 689). The project offered in- and out-patient services to more
than 42,000 child and adolescent dependents of military personnel in the Fort
Bragg (North Carolina) catchment area for more than five years from June 1990
to September 1995. It was considered a model program by the American
Psychological Association's section on Child Clinical Psychology and the
Division of Child, Youth and Family Services Joint Task Force.
The study showed that the program produced better access to treatment, higher
levels of client satisfaction, and fewer restrictions on treatment. However, the
cost was higher and the clinical outcomes were no better than those at the
comparison site. The findings led Bickman "to question the assumption that
clinical services provided in the community are effective" (p. 699).
Bickman's findings were not unique. Weisz, Huey, and Weersing (1998)
reported that comparable findings have emerged from other studies designed to
improve the delivery of clinical services. These authors offered as one of the
likely explanations for this finding that "the various treatments that are
linked and coordinated within these continua of care may simply not be very
effective" (p. 62). The findings confirmed Jacobson's conclusion that child
and adolescent psychotherapies "are not better than no therapy at
all" (emphasis in original, p. 45).
But if it is not effective, can therapy for child sexual abuse be harmful?
This is an area requiring research. However, according to Seligman (1994), the answer to this
question is: yes. He cautioned against therapy for the sexually abused and
noted, for example, that it is often asserted that the sexually abused need to
relive the experience and experience a catharsis in order to improve. Despite
the fact that catharsis has a long history as a therapeutic technique, there is
no evidence that it works (Bushman, Baumeister, & Stack, 1999; Seligman,
1994). On the contrary, as Seligman suggested, reliving the event may be
harmful
as it heightens the event in the child's mind and interferes with the natural
healing process.
Exploiting Child Sexual Abuse
The evidence clearly indicates that the routine provision of psychotherapy
for the sexually abused is not warranted. Why, then, is it provided routinely?
Unfortunately, child sexual abuse is a problem that is widely exploited by
professionals according to Costin, Karger, and Stoesz (1996):
the rediscovery of child abuse by the middle class has also led to the
growth of a child abuse industry composed of opportunistic psychotherapists
and aggressive attorneys who have prospered from child sexual abuse,
exploiting adults who have evidence of having been abused and encouraging
memory recall fro those who haven't. ... Clearly, the psychological paradigm
of child abuse has been a godsend ... for mental health professionals looking for new diseases.
Unfortunately,
one of the causalities of this new industry has been adult victims, who risk
being victimized yet again, this time by a child abuse industry seeking out
new forms of economic growth. ...
... Ironically, a public that is sympathetic to the plight of abused and
neglected children fails to understand that it foots much of the bill for an
out-of-control and demand-driven legal and psychotherapy industry. ... (p. 7)
Dineen (1999) took a similar position. She charged that the psychology
industry (which she defines broadly to include psychologists, psychiatrist,
psychoanalysts, clinical social workers, and psychotherapists) needs victims to
justify the expansion of its domain. Accordingly, it "manufactures
victims." Tavris (1993) made a similar charge with respect to the
incest-survivor recovery movement. Thus, according to Costin et al., Dineen, and
Tavris, child sexual abuse has become an arena of opportunism for and
exploitation by some in the mental health industry
Recommendations
What can be done to deal with this opportunism and exploitation? There are a
number of things that can and should be done, especially by social workers and
the social work profession. According to their code of ethics (NASW, 1996;
Reamer, 1998), social workers have an ethical responsibility to base their
practice on knowledge relevant to social work practice, including empirically
based knowledge (Std. 4.01 [c]). They are also to assure clients are
appropriately informed of the evidence concerning the need for and effectiveness
of interventions for the purpose of informed consent (Std. 1.03 [a]), and they
also have a responsibility to assure the public is informed so that it may shape
social policies and programs (Std. 6.03). Accordingly,
1. Social workers should
educate the community and the courts about the myths surrounding the problem of
child sexual abuse. This includes laying to rest the myth that because a sexual
activity violates a moral and/or a legal code that it is thereby necessarily or
even usually psychologically harmful. In other words, it is time to stop
equating wrongfulness with harrnfulness in sexual matters as suggested by Rind
and Tromovitch (1997).
Perpetuating the myth that sexual abuse is necessarily or usually harmful is
unethical and creates possible iatrogenic effects, as noted sometime ago by Schultz (1980):
We seem to arbitrarily create "norms" for minors and then justify
departures from them as traumatic. Such fabrication is professionally
unethical and possibly damaging to minors involved in sexual behaviors with
others. What inappropriate trauma ideology does is to pit the professional
(true believer) against the child or the parents who may feel differently.
The risk is that a type of self-fulfilling prophecy emerges that manages to
produce the problem it claims to abhor, but which it, in fact, must have in
order to sustain the ideology it is based upon. ... Sexual behavior between
adult and child or between two minors in neither harmful or (sic) harmless
always (p. 40).
By way of example, Schultz cited Germaine Greer. She wrote of the experience
of one of her friends:
From the child's point of view and from the commonsense point of view,
there is an enormous difference between intercourse with a willing little
girl and the forcible penetration of the small vagina of a terrified child.
One woman I know enjoyed sex with her uncle all through her childhood, and
never realized that anything was unusual until she went away to school.
What
disturbed her then was not what her uncle had done but the attitude of her
teachers and the school psychiatrist. They assumed that she must have been
traumatized and disgusted and therefore in need of very special help. In
order to capitulate to their expectation, she began to fake symptoms she did
not feel, until at length she began to feel truly guilty for not having felt
guilty. She ended up judging herself quite harshly for this innate lechery
(cited in Schultz, 1980, p.39).
2. Social workers must advise prospective clients of the risks of serious
side-effects associated with therapy. They have the right to know the probabilities of a successful
outcome versus a non-successful outcome, i.e., of getting worse and of not
improving. Prospective clients have a right to know whether the treatment they
are to be exposed to is empirically validated, is still experimental, or has been
discredited by sound research (Reamer, 1998).
With this information, prospective clients can make an informed decision as
to whether or not to subject themselves or their children to the risks
associated with therapy. They also can choose to seek an alternative.
Jacobson
(1995) related that a dissatisfied patient told him that "in retrospect,
after spending $5,000 on unsuccessful psychotherapy, with no suggestion from the
therapist that there was any alternative, it occurred to me that it would have
been much more therapeutic to use that money to hire babysitters, a maid
service, even a butler" (p. 46).
This patient echoes the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect's
report, A Nation's Shame (1995). The report expressed concern about the
over-reliance on counseling and parenting education for maltreating parents.
It
suggested that often what these parents needed was simply a few hours of respite
from child care.
3. Social workers should educate courts to stop routinely referring the
sexually abused for therapy. Child sexual abuse is not a psychiatric
disorder or a syndrome (Finkelhor, & Berliner, 1995). Rather it is an event
or series of events in a person's life. Treatment is indicated only when there
is currently demonstrable harm. To do otherwise is similar to a physician
treating children for bicycle accidents. Many children who have a bicycle
accident do not require treatment. When they do need treatment, it is for a
clinical condition rather than the event responsible for that condition. In
other words, the asymptomatic child or adolescent should not be treated.
However, even when there is demonstrable harm, treatment should be
recommended only with caution since it may, as pointed out by Seligman, only
worsen the harm by interfering with the natural healing process. According to Seligman, the overreaction of
parents and police, and early therapeutic intervention to undo
"denial," and later therapeutic intervention to recover
"repressed" memories and then to relive the experience may do more
harm than good. Thus, he recommends to parents whose children have been abused
or who were themselves abused that they "turn the volume down as soon as
possible" (p. 235).
Additionally, the excessive and unnecessary provision of child sexual abuse
treatment takes resources from other victims and other victim needs (Costin et
al., 1996). Lastly, and most importantly, it also makes the accurate evaluation
of treatment effectiveness impossible since the treatment pool is contaminated
by including those who do not need treatment in the first place.
Conclusion
This paper addressed the question: is the routine provision of psychotherapy
for child sexual abuse warranted? A review of the literature on the impact of
child sexual abuse and on the outcome of child and adolescent psychotherapy
indicates that it is not warranted. Moreover, it indicates that the asymptomatic
should most definitely not be referred for psychotherapy.
Child sexual abuse has become an arena for opportunistic therapists to
exploit and revictimize victims of child sexual abuse. It is time to heed and
respond to the earlier warning of Browne and Finkelhor (1986). They warned that
"advocates not exaggerate or overstate the intensity or inevitability of
these consequences" because "victims and their families ... may be
further victimized by exaggerated claims about the effects of sexual abuse"
(p. 178). Indeed, it is time that, as recommended by Seligman, parents of
sexually abused children were encouraged "to turn down the volume" lest
they create or aggravate a negative reaction to the abuse.
Reference List
Beitchman, J. H., Zucker, K. J., Hood, J. E., DaCosta, G., Akman, D., &
Cassavia, E. (1992). A review of the long-term effects of child sexual abuse.
Child Abuse & Neglect, 16, 101-118.
Berliner, L., & Elliott, D. M. (1996). Sexual abuse of children. In J.
Briere, L. Berliner, J. A. Bulkley, C. Jenny, & T. Reid (Eds.), The APSAC
Handbook on Child Maltreatment ()()
(pp. 51-71). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Beutler, L. B., Williams, R. B., Zetzer, H. A. (1994). Efficacy of treatment
for victims of child sexual abuse. The Future of
Children, 4(2), 156-175.
Bickman, L. (1996). A continuum of care: More is not always better. American Psychologist,
51, 689-701.
Browne, A., & Finkelhor, D. (1986). Initial and long-term effects: A
review of the research. In D. Finkelhor, A Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse
()()
(pp.
143-179). Beverly Hills: Sage.
Bullough, V. L. (1990). History in adult human sexual behavior with children
and adolescents in Western societies. In J. R. Feierman (Ed.), Pedophilia:
Biosocial Dimensions ()
(pp. 69-90). NY: Springer-Verlag.
Bushman, B. J., Baumeister, R. F., & Stack, A. D. (1999). Catharsis,
aggression, and persuasive influence: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating
prophecies? Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 76, 367-376.
Ceci, S. J., & Bruck, M. (1995). Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A
Scientific Analysis of Children's Testimony (). Washington, DC:
American Psychological
Association.
Constantine, L. L. (1981). Effects of early sexual experience: A review and
synthesis of research. In L. L. Constantine, & F. M. Martinson (Eds.), Children
and Sex: New Findings, New Perspectives ()
(pp. 217-244). Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
Conte, J. R. (1985). The effects of sexual abuse on children: A critique and
suggestions for future research. Victimology: An International Journal, 10, 110-130.
Costin, L., Karger, H. J., .& Stoesz, D. (1996). The Politics of Child
Abuse in America ()(). New York:
Oxford University.
Dineen, T. (1998). Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is
Doing to People (2nd Ed.) ()(). Montreal:
Robert Davies.
Finkelhor, D., & Berliner, L. (1995). Research on
the treatment of sexually abused children: A review and recommendations. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,
34, 1408-1423.
Friedrich, W. N., Grambsch, P., Broughton, D., Kuiper, J.,
& Beilke, R. L. (1991). Normative sexual behavior in children. Pediatrics,
88, 456-464.
Friedrich, W. N., Fisher, J., Broughton, D., Houston, M.,
& Shafran, C. R. (1998). Normative sexual behavior in children: A
contemporary sample. Pediatrics, 101 [On-line]. Available: www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/101/4/e9.
Hollenberg, E., & Ragan, C. (1991). Child sexual
abuse: Selected projects (BOA #105-88-8111). Washington, DC: National Center
on Child Abuse and Neglect.
Jacobson, N. (1995). The overselling of therapy. Family
Therapy Networker, 19, 41-41.
Kendall-Tackett, K. A., Williams, L. M., & Finkelhor, D.
(1993). Impact of sexual abuse on children: A review and synthesis of recent
empirical studies. Psychological Bulletin,
113, 164-180.
Lamb, S., & Coakley, M. (993). "Normal"
childhood sexual play and games: Differentiating play from abuse.
Child Abuse & Neglect, 17, 515-526.
Levitt, E. E., & Pinnell, C. M. (1995). Some
additional light on the childhood sexual abuse-psychopathology axis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental
Hypnosis, 43, 145-162.
Miller, T. R., Cohen, M. A., & Wiersema, B. (1996). Victim Costs and
Consequences: A New Look. Washington, DC: National Institute
of Justice.
National Association of Social Workers. (1996).
NASW code
of ethics. Washington, DC: Author.
Pope, H. G. (1997). Psychology Astray: Fallacies in Studies of "Repressed
Memory." ()
Boca Raton, FL: Upton.
Pope, H. G., & Hudson, J. I. (1995). Does
childhood sexual abuse cause adult psychiatric disorders? Essentials of
methodology. The Journal of Psychiatry & Law, 23, 363-381.
Reamer, F. G. (1998). Ethical Standards in Social Work: A Critical Review of the NASW
Code of Ethics
(). Washington, DC:
NASW Press.
Reid, T. (1996). Psychosocial Treatment-Introduction. In J.
Briere, L. Berliner, J. A. Bulkley, C. Jenny, & T. Reid (Eds.), The APSAC
Handbook on Child Maltreatment
()()
(pp. 101-103). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Rind, B., & Tromovitch, P. (1997). A meta-analytic review
of findings from national samples on psychological correlates of child sexual
abuse. The Journal of Sex Research,
34, 237-255.
Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). Psychological Bulletin,
124, 22-53.
Schultz, L. (1980). Diagnosis and treatment-Introduction. In
L. Schultz (Ed.), The Sexual Victimology of Youth ()
(pp. 3942). Springfield, ILL:
Charles C. Thomas.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1994). What You Can Change and What You Can't ()(). New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Tavris, C. (1993, January 3). Beware the incest-survivor
machine. The New York Times Book
Review, pp.1, 16-17.
U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect. (1995,
April). A nation's shame: Fatal child abuse and neglect in the United States. Washington, DC:
Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1999).
Mental health: A
report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: Author.
Walters, D. R. (1975). Physical and Sexual Abuse of Children: Causes and
Treatment ()(). Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Weisz, J. R., Huey, S. J., & Weersing, V. R. (1998). Psychotherapy
outcome research with children and adolescents: The state of the art. In T. H.
Ollendick & R. J. Prinz (Eds.), Advances in Clinical Child Psychology,
20
(),
(pp. 49-91). New York: Plenum.
Weisz, J. R., Weiss, B., & Donenberg, G. R. (1992): The lab versus the
clinic: Effects of child and adolescent psychotherapy. American Psychologist,
47, 1578-1585.
Weisz, J. R., Weiss, B., Han, S. S., Granger, D. A., & Morton, T. (1995).
Effects of psychotherapy with children and adolescents revisited: A
meta-analysis of treatment outcome studies. Psychological Bulletin,
117, 450-468.
* Thomas D. Oellerich, Ph.D., ACSW, LISW, DAPA
Associate Professor of Social Work
Department of Social Work
Ohio University
Athens, 011 45701
Tel: Office -740 593-1292
Home -740 592-1467
oelleric@oak.cats.ohiou.edu.
[Back] |