Sequelae of Child Sexual Abuse: A Child and Parent Assessment

Abstract

We present a case example of a 9-year-old, biracial girl and her mother. We integrate data collected from rating scales (e.g., Child Behavior Checklist; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001), a free response measure (Thematic Apperception Test; Murray, 1943), and a direct observation measure (Parent-Child Interaction Assessment-II; Holigrocki, Kaminski, & Frieswyk, 1999, 2002) and reveal how a child sexual abuse victim's internal representations and symptoms manifest in both an interpersonal context and in the realm of play. We discuss assessment findings regarding how they provide for an idiographic understanding of the child.

An Updated Statement for the Clinical Case Applications Section: Suggestions for Clinical and Empirical Case Reports

“…These types of submissions could include descriptions of administration and scoring procedures, techniques specific to a particular type of assessment (e.g., forensic, biopsychosocial, collaborative/therapeutic), and broad techniques applicable to all personality assessment practice, such as conducting an effective initial interview and establishing a therapeutic alliance with clients. JPA has previously published case studies of parent-child interaction assessment (Holigrocki, Crain, Bohr, Young, & Bensman, 2009; Holigrocki & Raches, 2006), the personality assessment of Asberger’s and Nonverbal Learning Disorder (Yalof, 2006), short- and long-term changes on the Rorschach (Silverstein, 2007), personality assessment in healthcare settings (Quirk, Erdberg, Crosier, & Steinfeld, 2007), and forensic case studies of the MMPI-A (Pennuto & Archer, 2008). …”

Are problems prevalent and stable in non-clinical populations? Problems and test-retest stability of a patient-generated measure, PSYCHLOPS (Psychological Outcome Profiles), in a non-clinical student sample

“…For example, some use highly standardised stimuli but very free response formats and rely on raters for some standardisation and generalisability, e.g. the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (Holigrocki & Raches, 2006;Langan-Fox & Grant, 2006), the HouseTree-Person test (Vass, 1998) and the Object Relations Technique (Kernhof, Kaufhold, & Grabhorn, 2008). Other idiographic methods, for example repertory grids (Houston, 1998;Ryle & Evans, 1991), have flexible stimuli but standardised responses and avoid the need for trained raters.…”