Relationship Therapy with Child Victims of Sexual Abuse Placed in Residential Care

Child sexual abuse victims placed in residential care present a dilemma for residential staff. Behaviors exhibited by these youth are difficult to understand and treat. Despite efforts made by staff, acting out behavior continues. This article focuses on understanding these behaviors from a relationship perspective. The combination of abuser-victim dichotomy, identification with the aggressor, self-blame, and perverse object contact are seen in the child's relationships. Staff should recognize that a child's relationship problems are not the result of their interventions, but residue of the child's past abuse. Understanding the relationship problems experienced by these youth provides means for reframing these behaviors and directing interventions.     

Adult perpetrator gender asymmetries in child sexual assault victim selection: results from the 2000 National Incident-Based Report System

Data from the 2000 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) show that while males make up about nine out of every 10 adult sexual assault perpetrators, totaling about 26,878 incidents within the reporting period, females account for about one out of 10 perpetrators, totaling about 1,162 incidents. Male sexual assault perpetrators offend against child victims about 25% of the time and predominantly choose female child victims, whereas female perpetrators offend against child victims about 40% of the time and choose child victims of both genders equally. Male perpetrators offend against adolescent victims about 40% of the time, and once again tend to choose female adolescent victims. Female perpetrators offend against adolescent victims a comparable amount of time (about 45%), and for forcible offenses (rape, sodomy, sexual assault with an object, and forcible fondling) choose adolescent victims of both genders equally, while for non-forcible offenses (non-forcible incest and statutory rape) they tend to choose predominantly male victims. Finally, adult male sexual assault perpetrators choose adult victims about 36% of the time while female perpetrators choose adult victims only 16% of the time. Implications for professionals are discussed, including recommendations to aid in correct identification of adult perpetrators and child/adolescent victims of sexual assault.     

When Social Workers Are Stalked: Risks,Strategies, and Legal Protections

By virtue of their work, social workers are at risk of becoming victims of stalking. This is because social workers assist individuals who suffer from major mental health problems that may cause them to develop delusional beliefs about their therapists, and because social workers may need to exercise authority against individuals with personality disturbances that present a risk to others. Surveys suggest that 16% of social workers have been stalked at one point in their career by a client. Stalking of social workers by clients has far-reaching personal and professional implications, potentially affecting all aspects of an individual’s life. This paper reviews the nature and incidence of stalking of social workers, the legal remedies available to social workers who are victims of stalking, and strategies for protection.     

Evaluations of aggressive women: the effects of gender, socioeconomic status, and level of aggression

Research finds gender differences in aggression and suggests that female violence is viewed differently from male violence. Participants were 94 female and 38 male students from a mid-size public university in the Southeast. Participants read a mock trial and answered questions about their attitudes concerning an aggressor in the scenario. The study was a 2 (male or female) by 2 (high socioeconomic status or low socioeconomic status) by 2 (verbal aggression or physical aggression) between-subjects factorial design. The participants responded to a revised version of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Nelson, 1988). As hypothesized aggressive women were evaluated more negatively than aggressive men and participants evaluated the female aggressor who used physical aggression more negatively than the female who used verbal aggression. The hypothesis that the female aggressor would be perceived as more in need of counseling than the male aggressor was not supported. Contrary to another hypothesis, respondents did not evaluate higher socioeconomic status aggressors more negatively than those of lower status. As hypothesized people with traditional views of women evaluated the female aggressor more negatively than people with more liberal views of women, and liberal participants evaluated the male and female aggressors similarly. The more negative evaluation of female aggressors and, in particular, females who use physical aggression, may result in unfair treatment of such females. These social biases may cloud perceptions of aggressive females, suggesting that their actions are more inappropriate than those of a male who committed the same act.     

Compatibility of ethnic and national identifications under multicultural policies

Immigrants' national and ethnic identifications have been assumed to contradict each other. However, while studies in psychology generally support this association, under the condition in which national identifications are conceptualized as inclusive, ethnic identifications do not necessarily contradict national identifications. I hypothesize that in a country where tolerant multicultural policies are introduced, immigrants' ethnic and national identifications may be compatible. To test this hypothesis, data collected from respondents with an immigrant background in the European Social Survey 2014 were analysed with multilevel modelling. The results support the hypothesis: in a country with tolerant multicultural policies, ethnic and national identifications are positively associated, while in a country with strict policies, the identifications are negatively associated. This study indicates that the association between ethnic and national identifications is not always negative, but this is dependent on context.     

Migration and the dialogue of multiple identifications: Kurdish migrants in the tourist industry of Istanbul

This article examines the cultural dilemmas proceeding from the multiple identifications of Kurdish migrants working in the multicultural environment of Istanbul’s tourist industry. Since identifications invariably multiply when migrants enter multicultural environments, the question emerges how migrants cope with increasing identifications? How are multiple identifications related within the self? In this article, these questions are addressed, first, by analysing how Kurds explain ethnic stereotypes of themselves with reference to migration from the region of origin. Furthermore, conflicts and ambiguities between identifications as individual migrant and identifications as family member are investigated. Third, identifications of the ‘villager’ versus the ‘urbanite’ are reviewed, while, finally, the role of ‘learning’ in the migration process for Kurdish identifications will be highlighted. Dialogical self theory is used to situate the analysis of cultural dilemmas and contradictions of Kurdish migrants in Istanbul within the broader study of multiple identifications of migrants in multicultural societies.     

PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION IN COMMON COUPLE DANCES

This paper integrates the object relations concept of projective identification and the systemic concept of marital dances to develop a more powerful model for working with more difficult and distressed couples. This integrated model explains how some couples use the defenses of splitting and projective identification to externalize and transpose internal conflicts into interpersonal conflicts in five common marital dances. The author suggests how object relations techniques can be used to interrupt the projective identifications, help clients to reown their disowned and projected affects and resolve the conflict on the intrapsychic level so that the marital dance is no longer necessary to resolve the intrapsychic issues.     

Rowing ‘at home’ and ‘away’: sport,heritage and identity in the Malay world

This paper is grounded in a comparison of the cultural identifications that accompany Sambas Malays’ participation in rowing competitions ‘at home’ and ‘away’. Sambas Malays are Indonesian citizens from the regency of Sambas, who ethnically identify as Malay. There, rowing competitions provide the sociocultural infrastructure for developing local and translocal cultural identifications. Two related, yet distinguishable, cultural identifications are evident, each associated with a specific rowing infrastructure. When contests occur ‘at home’, rowing is steeped in local Sambas Malay culture and heritage. However, contests ‘away’, in areas loosely identified as ‘Malay’, generate identifications with a regionally based Malay culture and consociality. Utilizing a non-positivistic conceptualization of ‘border’, this paper considers the intersection of culture, politics, economy, geography and mobility in everyday bordering practices producing two overlapping cultural identifications.     

The gender identity of pedophiles: what does the outcome data tell us?

The aim of this study was to determine whether pedophiles have a different gender identity profile compared with non-sexual offenders. Participants were 87 male adult subjects, divided into three groups: (a) 27 pedophiles who abused male victims, (b) 30 pedophiles who abused female victims, and (c) 30 non-sexual offenders. The gender identity factor was measured with the Mf scale of the MMPI and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). Results indicated no significant inter-group differences in terms of gender identity. However, the order of the three groups regarding scores on the Bem-Masculinity and the Mf scale was as predicted. Conceptual and empirical elements related to gender identity are addressed in order to shed light on potential disturbances in the gender identity of pedophiles.     

Abuse of children in day care centres: Characteristics and consequences

While day care sexual abuse cases share features in common with sexual abuse in other settings, many characteristics of abuse in day care settings merit special attention. These factors include the young age of the child victims, the involvement of multiple victims and multiple perpetrators, females as perpetrators, use of extreme threats, severity of the abuse, and in some instances ritualistic activities. Research findings support clinical impressions that children are negatively impacted by sexual abuse in day care. Consequences of abuse in day care include anxiety, excessive fearfulness, behavioural disturbances, sexual acting out and sleep disorders. Parents whose children are abused in day care centres also experience psychological distress with symptom profiles consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. Abuse of children in day care settings warrants a specialized treatment approach. A major goal of treatment is to decrease symptomatology among all family members.     

The Gender Identity of Pedophiles: What Does the Outcome Data Tell Us?

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to determine whether pedophiles have a different gender identity profile compared with non-sexual offenders. Participants were 87 male adult subjects, divided into three groups: (a) 27 pedophiles who abused male victims, (b) 30 pedophiles who abused female victims, and (c) 30 non-sexual offenders. The gender identity factor was measured with the Mf scale of the MMPI and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). Results indicated no significant inter-group differences in terms of gender identity. However, the order of the three groups regarding scores on the Bem-Masculinity and the Mf scale was as predicted. Conceptual and empirical elements related to gender identity are addressed in order to shed light on potential disturbances in the gender identity of pedophiles.     

The feeling edge of culture

During the 1960s, the new generation changed the American Creed by deemphasizing sensitivity to evidence, emphasizing feelings and deductive thought, while assuming an adversarial position against the sociopolitical order and embracing the American Black's struggle against racism. Driven by pain, fueled by fear and anger and oriented by existential values of being, the Civil Rights Movement, sought to actualize political values of justice and equality. As peaceful demonstrations dwindled, violence increased, converting individual anger to social rage. Anger's cognitive structure changed the concept of society into a dichotomy of Black victims and White oppressors, forming an ethic of sensitivity with victims occupying the moral high ground. Pain and tragedy were banished from view and blamed on oppressors as individual identities divested civil traits and acquired cultural identity, disuniting the civil society. Rubbing against the American Creed, the ethic of sensitivity produced a feeling of malaise posing a threat to mental health.     

The Feeling Edge of Culture

During the 1960s, the new generation changed the American Creed by deemphasizing sensitivity to evidence, emphasizing feelings and deductive thought, while assuming an adversarial position against the sociopolitical order and embracing the American Black's struggle against racism. Driven by pain, fueled by fear and anger and oriented by existential values of being the Civil Rights Movement, sought to actualize political values of justice and equality. As peaceful demonstrations dwindled, violence increased, converting individual anger to social rage. Anger's cognitive structure changed the concept of society into a dichotomy of Black victims and Ulhite oppressors, forming an ethic of sensitivity with victims occupying the moral high ground. Pain and tragedy were banished from view and blamed on oppressors as individual identities divested civil traits and acquired cultural identity, disuniting the civil society. Rubbing against the American Creed, the ethic ofsensitivity produced a feeling of malaise posing a threat to mentaL health.     

‘The Hidden Holocaust’: The East Timor Alert Network (ETAN) and Human Rights Claims in Canada, 1985–1998

This article examines the East Timor Alert Network's (ETAN) claims-making strategies regarding support for human rights and self-determination of East Timor during the Indonesian occupation from 1975–1998. This research seeks to understand how ETAN attempted to persuade Canadians to care about a geographically distant horror. I examine various claims-making strategies that ETAN used to encourage Canadian audiences to evaluate the problem as an object of public concern, the Timorese as victims deserving of their sympathy, and Canadian government as condemnation-worthy.     

World Culture,Uncoupling, Institutional Logics,and Recoupling: Practices and Self‐Identification as Institutional Microfoundations of Political Violence

This study proposes a micro‐institutional theory of political violence, according to which citizens' participation in political violence is partially an outcome of tight coupling of persons' practices and self‐identifications with institutional logics opposed to dominant logics associated with world culture, such as the nation‐state and gender equality. The study focuses on two types of institutional carriers through which persons adopt institutional logics: routine practices and self‐identifications associated with three institutional logics: the familial, the ethnic, and the religious logics. Using a 15‐country survey data from early twenty‐first‐century sub‐Saharan Africa, the study finds evidence in support of the theory. Reported participation in political violence is associated with practices and self‐identifications uncoupled from dominant world‐culture logics but tightly coupled with the patriarchal familial logic, with an oppositional ethnic logic, and with a politicized oppositional religious logic.     

A Preliminary Examination of Specific Risk Assessment for Sexual Offenders Against Children

Specific risk questions concerning sexual offending, such as risk of offending against male victims given identified female victims, have seldom been discussed in the child sexual abuse literature. Two approaches to specific risk questions are described: (a) conditional probability calculations, and (b) the development of risk assessment instruments. It is concluded that specific risk questions should be addressed by the use of established instruments for assessing risk of general sexual recidivism rather than by the development of additional specific risk assessment instruments. Research supporting risk assessment instruments and cautions about their use are discussed. Finally, the application of risk assessments for sexual offenders and assessments of risk to siblings of incest victims is discussed.     

Assessing the role of hope in processes of transitional justice: mobilizing and disciplining victims in Sierra Leone’s truth commission and reparations programme

Existing studies have not been able to take the role of hope in processes of transitional justice (TJ) into account, as they focus on how TJ changes institutions and the relationships between individuals and therefore conclude that failed processes of TJ have no effect. In contrast to this approach, a different understanding of power as productive helps to understand how TJ-instruments create hope and which effects this has on how people conceive of themselves and the world they live in. A framework for analysing such processes is introduced that brings together individual meaning-making of hope and hopelessness with the role of the state in the provision of hope in the context of uncertainty. Transitional justice is therefore discussed as a performative project that aims at triggering specific emotions among the persons taking part in it and the broader society and at creating a vision of a better future based on social equality through the protection and fulfilment of human rights. By applying this framework to the case of the Sierra Leone truth and reconciliation commission and the reparations programme, it is argued that hope had a mobilizing as well as a disciplining function in these instruments. The promise of support mobilized victims to provide statements to the truth commission, and therefore enabled the commission to work in the first place. However, it failed in its attempt to discipline victims in their feelings about the past violence. The reparations programme constituted the embodiment of these promises, but victims interpreted its inadequate benefits and bad management as a proof that the state still does not care for them and competition over benefits is the norm despite their entitlement to support. This experience destroyed the hopes of many victims and created social envy among them, preventing the development of solidarity among victims and the chance for resistance against this policy.