Attachment theory on child sexual abuse

Attachment theory on child sexual abuse Attachment may also be an important factor that places children at greater or lesser
risk of child sexual abuse. Alexander (1992) was the first to discuss the relevance of
attachment to intrafamilial sexual abuse, specifically father-daughter incest. She believes that insecure attachment is a general risk factor that places children at
greater risk of sexual abuse (Alexander & Anderson, 1998). Further, she believes that
the type of insecure attachment is related to specific dynamics within the “incestuous”
family (p. 347). She categorizes families in which incest occurs by type of attachment,
either dismissing/avoidant, anxious/ambivalent, or disorganized.
In families whose members are dismissing/avoidant, she suggests that the
incestuous father is more authoritarian and that the mother is neither available nor
empathetic to the child (Alexander & Anderson, 1998). The rejection the child
experiences in this family sets the stage for the initiation of the abuse and the interference with its termination. In families whose members are anxious/ambivalent,
Alexander believes that role reversal is an important dynamic. Thus, offenders have an expectation that their sexual and emotional needs will be met. Nonoffending
guardians, because of their excessive dependency and problems with self-protection,
are less able to attend to their children’s needs. These children, in turn, may be more
vulnerable to abuse because of their coyness that characterizes their attempts to
coerce or control others. Finally, disorganized offenders may have minimal impulse
control, whereas disorganized nonoffending mothers may be inaccessible to their children because of their mothers’ tendency to flee the alarmed child. Alexander also
recognizes that securely attached children might be abused intrafamilially, although she suggests that the circumstances would be extenuating.
Alexander’s work (1992; Alexander & Anderson, 1998) is important because it
provides a theoretical rationale for incest that is far less biased than family systems
theory. As the presentation of her hypotheses currently stand, however, they are not
yet complex enough to capture what is known about child sexual abuse and
attachment. First, the attachment literature acknowledges that parents can have different attachment styles (Fox, Kimmerley, & Schafer, 1991). Thus, a mother may
be dismissing, whereas the father may be avoidant. The second important weakness
in the presentation of her current hypotheses is that the theory continues to
pathologize the nonoffending mother. In all categories, Alexander discusses how nonoffending mothers, by nature of their insecure attachments, are not supportive of
their abused children. Instead, the empirical literature finds that the majority of nonoffending guardians are supportive (Bolen, 2000a). Thus, it is of concern that this
literature continues the pejorative emphasis on nonoffending guardians. Finally,
attachment theory does not adequately explain why some insecurely attached fathers
succumb to incest whereas others do not, nor why some insecurely attached fathers succumb, whereas insecurely attached mothers do not.