Mental health articles

Stressors within the family in sexual abuse Feminist theory also suggests that power imbalances within the family contribute to an unduly large number of stressors. Indeed, families of father-daughter incest have greater than the national norm of children (Anderson & Shafer, 1979; Herman, 198 1; Owen & Steele, 1991), and the pregnancies are not always the choice of the mother (Herman, 1981). Traditional divisions of labor are also typical (Herman, 1981), with families having structured and even rigid roles and responsibilities (Dadds et al., 1991). As such, mothers in these families are the primary caregivers and maintain primary responsibility for household tasks. Yet, they are often emotionally and socially isolated (Herman, 1981 ; Williams & Finkelhor, 1990), thus decreasing available family resources. Families in which father-daughter incest occurs experience other psychosocial stressors as well, including financial concerns (Wright, 1991), criminality (Gordon & Creighton, 1988; Williams & Finkelhor, 1990), unemployment (Anderson & Shafer, 1979; Gordon & Creighton, 1988), and psychiatric illness (Ballard et al., 1990). While some researchers have also found high levels of alcoholism in these families (Ballard et al., 1990; Gordon, 1989), other studies suggest that the use of alcohol is not unusually high (Groff & Hubble, 1984; Herman, 198 1) and that alcoholism is not a factor for the majority of incest offenders (Williams & Finkelhor, 1990). In sum, increased psychosocial stressors, large families, traditional divisions of labor, and restricted resources coalesce to ensure that nonoffending mothers are overwhelmed.

Tags: sexual abuse