Bringing Shame Out of the Shadows: Identifying Shame in Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure Processes and Implications for Psychotherapy

Child sexual abuse (CSA) has been described as a highly stigmatizing experience. Despite the recognition of shame as a significant contributor to psychological distress following CSA, an inhibitor of CSA disclosure, and a challenging emotion to overcome in therapy, limited research has explored the experience of shame with young people who have been sexually abused. This study is unique in examining the transcripts of 47 young people aged 15-25 years from a large-scale study conducted in Ireland and Canada and exploring manifestations of shame in CSA disclosure narratives. Using a thematic analysis of both inductive and deductive coding, the data were examined for implicit, as distinct from explicit, manifestations of shame. Three key themes were identified in this study: languaging shame, avoiding shame, and reducing shame. The study supports previous authors in highlighting the need for nuanced measures of shame in research that takes account of the complexity of this emotion. Conceptualizations in the literature of the distinction between shame and guilt are challenged when these emotions are explored in the context of CSA. Finally, recommendations for working therapeutically with young people who have experienced CSA are offered with a view to addressing shame in therapeutic work.

Asian American Women Sexual Assault Survivors' Choice of Coping Strategies: The Role of Post-Assault Cognitive Responses

Even though approximately one in three Asian American (AA) and Pacific Islander women experience sexual assault victimization, there is a dearth of literature examining how AA women sexual assault survivors cope with this traumatic experience. This study examined AA female sexual assault survivors' choice of coping strategies post-assault and how their cognitive responses toward sexual assault victimization (e.g., attributions of self-blame, perceived control over the recovery process) relate to their use of coping strategies. Using the AA subsets of two large community studies, a total of 64 AA women ages 18 to 58 with unwanted sexual experiences after the age of 14 years were included in the analyses. Results indicated that AA survivors used Acceptance and Self-Distraction the most to cope with sexual assault. In addition, those who perceived they had less control over their recovery process tended to use more maladaptive coping strategies, such as substance abuse and behavioral disengagement (e.g., giving up). Discussions include clinical implications and recommendations for using language, modalities, and foci of interventions that are consistent with clients' and their families' worldviews (e.g., indirect inquiries, solution-focused).

A common-sense model of injury perceptions

The aim of this study was to clarify the difference between perceptions of injury and illness. A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with 38 individuals who had been injured in the past, 8 medical psychologists, 62 graduate psychology students, and 19 health professionals treating injured patients. Data were analyzed by modified analytic induction and constant comparison methods. Common-sense perceptions of injury overlapped with some perceptions of illness, and 4 new themes were elicited. It was concluded that there are themes unique to injury perceptions that should be recognized in research as well as in clinical interventions.

Still Doing Fine? the Interplay of Negative Life Events and Self–Esteem during Young Adulthood

This longitudinal study investigated the bidirectional relationship between negative life events and self–esteem during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood (N = 2272). Drawing on theories of human development over the lifespan and just–world theory, we analyzed age–graded changes in self–esteem and their interplay with negative life events at three measurement points over a 12–year period. We addressed both the short–term and the longer term effects of single as well as multiple negative life events on changes in self–esteem (socialization effects). We further investigated whether the pre–event level of self–esteem affected the likelihood of negative life events occurring (selection effects) and, finally, whether it had protective effects in terms of helping people adjust to negative events. Latent change models yielded four main findings: (i) self–esteem increased during young adulthood; (ii) socialization effects were observed over shorter and longer timespans, but (iii) selection effects were only found for multiple negative life events, with low self–esteem predicting a high number of negative life events; (iv) high pre–event self–esteem acted as a protective factor, attenuating declines in self–esteem after experience of multiple negative life events. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology

Gender differences in cognitive and affective responses to sexual coercion

This study examined gender differences in responses to sexual coercive experiences in mixed-sex (male-female) relationships. Participants were 112 women and 28 men who had experienced sexual coercion and completed measures of cognitive (attributions to self, attributions to the coercer, internal attributions) and affective (guilt, shame) self-blame, trauma symptoms, and upset at the time of the incident) with respect to their most serious or upsetting sexually coercive experience. The women were more upset than were the men at the time of the incident. Contrary to predictions, the men and women did not differ in the extent to which they attributed blame to themselves or the strength of their internal attributions, guilt, or shame. Both the men and women attributed more blame to the coercer than to themselves; however, the women attributed more blame to the coercer than did the men. The women reported more trauma symptoms than the men did which was related to the finding that more women than men had experienced sexual coercion involving physical force. These results are discussed in terms of the similarities and differences between men's and women's cognitive and affective responses to sexual coercion.

Prospective changes in attributions of self-blame and social reactions to women's disclosures of adult sexual assault

The present longitudinal study examined relationships between self-blame attributions and social reactions to disclosure in a community sample of adult sexual assault victims ( N = 555). Cross-lagged panel analyses showed that neither characterological self-blame nor behavioral self-blame related to negative social reactions over the 1-year follow-up period. In contrast, characterological but not behavioral self-blame predicted fewer positive reactions over time. Although positive reactions did not reduce self-blame, negative reactions led to greater characterological, but not behavioral, self-blame during the course of the study. Thus, relationships between self-blame and social reactions were not reciprocal but rather quite complex. The effects of victims' coping strategies and sexual revictimization were also assessed.

Stigma-Threat Motivated Nondisclosure of Sexual Assault and Sexual Revictimization

The purpose of the study was to assess sexual assault survivors' nondisclosure motivations, including stigma threat, and their impact on revictimization risk. The authors describe data from a prospective study of 144 female, undergraduate sexual assault survivors, most of whom had been assaulted by acquaintances and only one of whom had officially reported her experience to police. As part of a large-scale investigation, participants described during individual interviews why they had not reported their experiences to law enforcement authorities. Open-ended responses were coded into five reliable content themes, one of which was stigma-motivated nondisclosure, or stigma threat. Results indicated that stigma threat prospectively predicted sexual revictimization during a 4.2-month follow-up period. Moreover, results of mediation analyses suggested that decreased posttraumatic growth during the course of the study accounted for the relationship between stigma threat and survivors' revictimizations. Discussion focuses on advances to the sexual revictimization research (e.g., the importance of assessing subjective/perceptual in addition to objective/factual characteristics of assaults and their social repercussions) and to posttraumatic growth research, with data highlighting for the first time an important health correlate (i.e., sexual revictimization) of sexual assault survivors' perceived (lack of) posttraumatic growth. In addition, recommendations are provided for primary (social-level) prevention as well as for secondary prevention, that is, formal and informal support provided to sexual assault survivors.

Deconstructing Self-Blame Following Sexual Assault: The Critical Roles of Cognitive Content and Process

As part of a larger study, predictors of self-blame were investigated in a sample of 149 undergraduate sexual assault survivors. Each participant completed questionnaires regarding their preassault, peritraumatic, and postassault experiences and participated in an individual interview. Results confirmed the central hypothesis that, although several established correlates independently relate to self-blame, only cognitive content and process variables— negative self-cognitions and counterfactual-preventability cognitions—uniquely predict self-blame in a multivariate model.