Suchergebnisse

The following questions are considered in this article from a clinician's perspective, in light of the data provided by three articles in this special section: Should therapy be abuse specific? Who should be the focus of treatment, children or families? Is more severe abuse harder to treat than moderate abuse? Are certain symptoms harder to treat than others? What is the preferable treatment modality? How long should therapy last to make a difference? Should developmental stages be considered in child therapy? How can a practicing clinician most efficiently measure outcome? In addition, the implications of the studies represented in these articles are discussed, and the author stresses the usefulness and value of research and empirical data in the effort to improve treatment outcomes in clinical practice.

AbstractSexual behavior is reported more often in sexually abused children than in nonabused children, but the consistency of this finding varies with the research method.

A sample of 119 consecutively hospitalized adolescents, including 32 sexually abused teenagers, was assessed with the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC). Participants also completed the Beck Depression Inventory, Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), Adolescent- Dissociative Experience Scale, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), Rorschach, and the Family Environment Scale. The reliability and validity of each of the six TSCC scales and four subscales was determined. Analyses suggest that the individual scales are reliable and significantly intercorrelated. Independent measures of depression, anxiety, anger, and dissociation typically correlated significantly with the reference TSCC scales, and in fact, the Posttraumatic Stress subscale significantly discriminated the sexually abused group from the remainder of the sample. These findings suggested that with a psychiatric sample, the TSCC is a valid measure of distress.

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Adolescent Clinical Sexual Behavior Inventory (ACSBI), a new 45-item measure, designed to elicit parent-and self-report regarding a range of sexual behaviors in high-risk adolescents. Using this measure, this study also investigated predictors of adolescent sexual behavior. Participants were 174 adolescents and their parents consecutively admitted to one of three clinical settings (i.e., inpatient treatment, partial hospital program, and outpatient clinic). Parent-and self-reports of adolescent sexual behavior were moderately correlated, and there was a strong relationship between high-risk sexual behavior and adolescent emotional and behavioral problems, as well as sexual concerns, distress, and preoccupation. In addition to sexual abuse, physical abuse, life stress, and impaired family relationships also significantly predicted sexual behavior in adolescents.

Parents' responses to their children's emotional expressivity have been shown to significantly influence children's subsequent psychosocial functioning. This study hypothesized that adolescents' deliberate self‐harm (DSH) may be an outcome associated with poor emotion regulation as well as an invalidating family environment. The mediational role of specific emotion processes (i.e., poor awareness of emotion, difficulties expressing emotions) between family emotional environment and the frequency of DSH was examined with 131 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents (M age=14.84 years, SD=1.75 years). Results indicated that adolescents who self‐injured reported that this behavior reduced their negative emotional states. Structural equation modeling provided support for the proposed model that family climate influences frequency of DSH through emotion regulation skills but the model held for girls only. A direct model effect was not supported. Emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between family climate and DSH, and direct effects were also observed.