The puzzle of intrafamilial child sexual abuse: A meta-analysis comparing intrafamilial and extrafamilial offenders with child victims

Annual Research Review: Umbrella synthesis of meta‐analyses on child maltreatment antecedents and interventions: differential susceptibility perspective on risk and resilience

“…Several meta‐analyses examined transmission of experienced child maltreatment to perpetrating maltreatment in the next generation, and combining the meta‐analytic effect sizes in an umbrella effect size, this is the antecedent with the strongest link to certified or self‐reported child maltreatment ( d = .47), see Figure . For example, in a meta‐analysis of 78 studies with 17,178 participants Seto et al () compared intra‐ versus extrafamilial offenders of child sexual abuse and found that intrafamilial offenders were more likely to have experienced sexual abuse themselves ( d = .10; k = 20) or, more generally, to have experienced abuse or neglect in their family of origin ( d = .31; k = 8). In another meta‐analysis on the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment, significant transmission of maltreatment was found ( d = .45; k = 80), with more specific transmission of type of abuse in case of emotional and sexual abuse and more diffuse transmission in case of physical abuse and neglect (Madigan et al, ).…”

When Nowhere Is Safe: Interpersonal Trauma and Attachment Adversity as Antecedents of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Developmental Trauma Disorder

“…Attachment adversity has been found to be associated with severe, complex, and chronic biopsychosocial impairment in childhood and across the lifespan (Berthelot et al., ; Feerick, Haugaard, & Hien, ; Frewen, Brown, DePierro, D'Andrea, & Schore, ; McKelvey, Whiteside‐Mansell, Conners‐Burrow, Swindle, & Fitzgerald, ; Myers & Wells, ; Reid & Sullivan, ; Sheinbaum, Kwapil, & Barrantes‐Vidal, ; Van Dijke, Ford, Frank, Van Son, & Van der Hart, ; van Dijke, Ford, Frank, & van der Hart, ; Widom, Horan, & Brzustowicz, ; Wiltgen, Arbona, Frankel, & Frueh, ). Attachment adversity often co‐occurs with other forms of interpersonal victimization (Bailey, Moran, & Pederson, ; D. Grasso, Dierkhising, Branson, Ford, & Lee, ; McKelvey et al., ; Seto, Babchishin, Pullman, & McPhail, ; Thoresen, Myhre, Wentzel‐Larsen, Aakvaag, & Hjemdal, ). Our findings are consistent with research suggesting that the combination of interpersonal trauma and attachment adversity has an adverse synergistic effect on psychosocial development (Lowe et al., ).…”

Child sexual abuse: Raising awareness and empathy is essential to promote new public health responses

“…10,34 Empathic responses are influenced by learned preferences and can be developed through education, 31,34,37,39 even in apparently challenging clinical circumstances such as autism. 34,40 While sexual abuse of children is a complex product of contextual, dispositional, and clinical factors, 8,9 empathy development for offenders is a focus of therapy 41 that we contend is also central for health policy and prevention efforts. Empathy is also known to enable clinical professionals to make prosocial responses.…”

“…At the individual level, perpetrators of child sexual abuse have poorly developed socio-emotional skills, attitudinal and cognitive distortions, 8,9 and possess similar attributes to sex offenders against adult women, 8 namely a sense of sexual entitlement, empathy deficits, a construction of masculinity emphasizing sexual performance and dominance, and a history of childhood victimisation. 10,11 Mathews and Collin-Vézina At the institutional level, such as in schools and religious institutions, child sexual abuse is more likely to be perpetrated, concealed, and to continue when there is a rigid power hierarchy, a culture of silence protecting the institution's reputation, and an absence of protective regulatory mechanisms including robust organizational policy, employee screening, codes of conduct, incident reporting processes, and staff education.…”