Psychological Assessment Of Sexually Abused Children And Their Families

Designed for professionals in the field of child maltreatment, this authoritative book presents a compelling theoretical framework that guide's assessment of children and adolescents who have been sexually abused and their parents. The book is designed to make it easier for clinicians to select a number of measures or procedures across three dimensions that have considerable clinical relevance – attachment, dysregulations, and self-perception. Psychological Assessment of Sexually Abused Children and Their Families features in particular the assessment of sexually aggressive children and an extensive set of interview formats, checklists, and other forms that clinicians will find especially useful in evaluating children and their families. The book is also richly illustrated with case studies.

This authoritative book presents a compelling theoretical framework that guides assessment of children and adolescents who have been sexually abused and their parents.

This volume of 18 articles provides information about a diversity of issues - recognition, legal codes, evaluation, psychodynamics, treatment, prognosis and outcome. Included are reports on an extensive survey of professional recognition in England and an examination of European criminal law relating to child sexual abuse, theoretical models of psychosexual development within the family and incest as an expression of a dysfunctional family system. Attention is given to special problems of treatment along with reports on three on-going treatment programmes. Two useful features of the book are a comprehensive bibliography and a critique of available audio-visual materials.

A groundbreaking therapeutic model to assist practitioners treat sexually abused children effectively is presented in this pragmatic volume. While the model is applicable to both male and female children, the author focuses on boys. In so doing, Friedrich cites pertinent gender and sociocultural issues that are critical to understanding boys, an understanding which is in turn essential for the provision of adequate and effective individual, group and family therapy.

`It was a pleasure to read Sandra Hewitt's book because she obviously writes from an in-depth experience of working with young children. Her book also communicates a passionate concern that professionals need to understand and listen properly to children and avoid viewing the stressful area of child protection mainly from an adult perspective' - Children and SocietyWritten to help frontline practitioners assess and manage cases with children aged 18 months to six years who present with allegations of child abuse, this book provides concrete and easily understood information about basic child development, interview procedures and case management theory.Extensive experience is integrated with the research literature to provide: an overview of child development information as it applies to interviewing young children; a protocol for assessment of preverbal children that is grounded in theory and research; a format for assessment of children aged three to five; a review of the strengths and weaknesses of some current interview formats; a technique for structured interviewing; and a procedure for structured reunification of a child with an alleged abuser after unproven allegations. Case examples are used throughout the book.

`This book is a practical and supportive guide for the professionals facing this traumatic subject. [It] is easily readable' - Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health `Therapeutic Work With Sexually Abused Children locates the practice experience of the authors within a rigorous theoretical framework and is a readable and useable guide to the complexities of helping children and adolescents who have suffered the trauma of sexual abuse' - Youth & Policy `It is refreshing to find child therapists ready to engage with sexually abused children by incorporating trauma theory and research, addressing child protection and seeing themselves as part of a team that includes the carers. The authors provide an overview of phases of treatment, theoretical considerations and essential skills. They emphasize the importance of relationship and explore its impact on the therapist. Their approach is creative and child-centered. Case vignettes, poems and exercises promote empathy with the child's perspective. There is a useful chapter on cultural issues and the needs of children in alternative care... this is an excellent primer for the child's helping network' - Community Care `This is an excellent book for workers seeking to respond more effectively to child victims of abuse' - David Pearson, Caring Magazine Therapeutic Work with Sexually Abused Children is a creative and practical guide for professionals working directly with those who have suffered sexual abuse and for their carers. The trauma of sexual abuse experienced in childhood can be severe and enduring. Therapeutic support is offered to help both the child and the family cope with psychological or emotional difficulties both currently and in later life. Therapists must be able to respond effectively to the child victim in a sensitive and timely way which prioritizes the needs of each child. Drawing on their experience as practitioners, the authors explore the reactions which children commonly experience following abuse and examine the tasks of the therapist in responding to them. This book explores the counselling of children who have been abused rather than adult survivors of child abuse. The book will benefit from the combined experiences of one US author and one UK author.

The past decade has seen more and more clinicians involved in the assessment and treatment of abused and traumatized children. They have contributed to an impressively large body of literature on the impact of abuse and trauma at all ages, the focus of which has been the short and long-term sequelae apparent in the child's behavior, emotional experience, and social interaction. But there have been few efforts to investigate the ways in which abuse and trauma damage the intrapsychic systems and structures that often guide, direct, and inform the child's manifest adjustment and functioning. The need to redress the balance was the major impetus for this book. Kelly offers a clinical paradigm for the personality assessment of abused or traumatized children via projective instruments--the TAT and Rorschach--and shows how various projective measures and indices can be utilized as sensitive barometers of changes in self, object, and ego functioning following therapeutic interventions and other corrective experiences. But further, integrating the tenets of trauma theory and those of psychoanalytic theory, he sets this clinical paradigm in a meaningful theoretical context, and draws on both theory and clinical experience to develop a comprehensive psychological composite of the child who has been maltreated. Part I provides an overview of theoretical models relevant to the assessment and diagnosis of the maltreated child. Contemporary psychoanalytic theory serves as one frame and is discussed first, with particular emphasis on object relations and ego functions. Equal attention is devoted to developmental psychology as another frame. Part II reviews relevant research. The Mutality of Autonomy Scale (MOA) and the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (SCORS) are introduced as examples of reliable and valid instruments readily employed to assess the impact of abuse or trauma on a child's object relations functioning. Additional Rorschach indices--boundary disturbance measures, thought disorder indices, trauma markers, and defensive functions measures--are discussed as measures of the impact on different facets of ego functioning. These various projective measures can be utilized as sensitive barometers of changes in self, object, and ego functioning following therapeutic interventions and other corrective experiences. Part III includes a variety of extended clinical illustrations. Seven cases of boys and girls subjected to varying degrees of abuse and trauma are presented to demonstrate the clinical utility of projective material for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning. For the clinician who takes the idiographical-phenomenological approach, appropriate given the uniqueness of each situation of abuse or trauma and the frequent brevity and barrenness of the protocol, such material can open a window onto a rich vista of the child's psychological terrain. The resulting map can point the way to wise decisions about type, timing, and level of therapeutic intervention, the resolution of such process issues as transference and countertransference, plus additional questions. Two cases of adult women who were abused as children and find themselves continuing to struggle with enduring unresolved issues vis a vis their own children are also presented. These cases underscore the value of TAT and Rorschach material, and object relations measures, in assessing and understanding the abusive and potentially abusive parent.

First Published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.