NCJ Number
147472
Journal
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1994) Pages: 117-132
Date Published
1994
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This longitudinal study compares data collected from female adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and adult Vietnam War veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Abstract
Many of the sexual abuse survivors experienced the three symptom clusters that characterize PTSD -- reexperiencing, avoidance of reminders of trauma and psychic numbing, and arousal. Many of the women believed that their lives were in danger or their bodies had been permanently damaged. The symptoms of both groups had often been misdiagnosed as pathological, rather than as normal responses to abnormal stress. There were, however, key differences between the two groups: the victims of childhood sexual abuse were all women and most veterans were men; many veterans had adjusted well after the war, while all the women victims believed their child abuse had been a pivotal life problem; the time lapse between the trauma and seeking help was longer for the women than the men; and defensive behavior was more deeply ingrained for the women. Other differences were the typical age at victimization, the source of stress for each group, the isolation of the women victims versus the collective suffering of the veterans, and the tendency of the women to have repressed their trauma. These results suggest a biological basis for both the agitation and the numbing effect found in the three clusters of PTSD symptoms. 1 table, 1 note, and 30 references