LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF INCEST - LIFE EVENTS TRIGGERING MENTAL-DISORDERS IN FEMALE-PATIENTS WITH SEXUAL ABUSE IN CHILDHOOD

The authors studied several psychosocial, psychosomatic, and psychodynamic factors in 33 female psychiatric patients who had been victims of incest. Abuse was almost exclusively severe and prolonged. Three quarters of the female patients had been abused by their biological fathers or stepfathers. Sexual abuse experiences in childhood are connected with feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and powerlessness. Together with a lack of support on the part of the mother, these experiences lead to ego weakness, an autoplastic mode of coping with aggression and to patterns of objectal relationships which predispose them to object loss. The links between a girl's traumatic experiences in relationships and her vulnerability to separation in later life and their importance for the incidence of mental disorders will be discussed on the basis of Bowlby's attachment theory.