Associations among childhood sexual abuse, language use, and adult sexual functioning and satisfaction

Abstract

To better understand the link between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and adult sexual functioning and satisfaction, we examined cognitive differences between women with (N = 128) and without (NSA, N = 99) CSA histories. We used the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count, a computerized text analysis program, to investigate language differences between women with and without CSA histories when writing about their daily life (neutral essay) and their beliefs about sexuality and their sexual experiences (sexual essay). Compared to NSA women, women with CSA histories used fewer first person pronouns in the neutral essay but more in the sexual essay, suggesting women with CSA histories have greater self-focus when thinking about sexuality. Women who reported CSA used more intimacy words and more language consistent with psychological distancing in the sexual essay than did NSA women. Use of positive emotion words in the sexual essay predicted sexual functioning and satisfaction in both groups. These findings support the view that language use differs in significant ways between women with and without sexual abuse histories, and that these differences relate to sexual functioning and satisfaction.

Linguistic changes in expressive writing predict psychological outcomes in women with history of childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual dysfunction.

“…In the same study, abused women used intimacy words (e.g., loving, arousable, warm) more than nonabused women in the sexual essay, perhaps suggesting a greater link between intimacy and sex for women with a history of CSA. In this study there were no differences in the use of sexual words (e.g., erection, sex, kiss) in the sexual essay between the two groups of women (Lorenz & Meston, 2012). …”

“…Depression is an important risk factor for the development of sexual problems in women both with and without a history of CSA (Bodenmann & Ledermann, 2008; Trudel & Goldfarb, 2010); therefore, this relationship may simply reflect the impact of depression on sexual health. Prior research on abused and nonabused women’s word use has documented that positive emotion word use, but not negative emotion word use, is associated with sexual function (Lorenz & Meston, 2012). In the current study, however, we found that for women with sexual abuse histories, decreases in negative emotion word use predicted better sexual function and sexual satisfaction, and changes in positive emotion word use did not predict changes in sexual outcomes.…”

“…In the same study on neutral and sexual essays, women with a history of CSA used the first person pronoun “I” more in the sexual essay than NSA women (Lorenz & Meston, 2012). Greater use of “I” has been associated with greater depression symptoms (Pennebaker & Chung, 2011), and women with a history of CSA are at a high risk of developing depression (Molnar et al, 2001).…”

Determining women's sexual self-schemas through advanced computerized text analysis

“…Intrinsic methods in sex research are less direct than self-report measures and often involve tests of reaction times (Mouras et al, 2003), implicit associations (Meston & Heiman, 2000), physiological responses (Meston & Gorzalka, 1996a, 1996b) as well as general unconditioned responses, like cortisol levels (Meston & Lorenz, 2013). A few studies in this field have used the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Software (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2001) to analyze themes within bodies of text (Lorenz & Meston, 2012; Pulverman, Lorenz, & Meston, 2015). The LIWC program operates by tallying the frequencies of words that fall within discrete, experimenter-defined categories.…”

Sudden Gains During Patient-Directed Expressive Writing Treatment Predicts Depression Reduction in Women with History of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Results from a Randomized Clinical Trial

“…They wrote on a computer, and were instructed to close their essays at the end of the 30-min period to ensure confidentiality. After the study was completed, these essays were verified for compliance with treatment prompts; no essay was found to be noticeably off-prompt (for more detail, see Lorenz and Meston 2012). …”