Mental health articles

sexual abuse by teachers. Two recent studies have considered the issue of abuse by teachers. One study, which surveyed 494 teachers in New York, found that 24% of teachers were aware that an allegation of sexual abuse had been made against a teacher in their school district within the previous year (Anderson & Levine, 1999). […]

Sexual Abuse in Day Care Centers and Homes A small number of studies have analyzed reported abuse occurring in day care centers. The largest is by Finkelhor, Williams, and Burns (1988), who attempted to identify all cases of sexual abuse reported nationwide for a three-year period. In 270 different facilities nationwide, sexual abuse was substantiated […]

children sexual abuse by unrelated caregivers Margolin and Craft (1989) analyzed a sample of 2,372 substantiated cases of children sexually abused by caregivers, 832 of which were committed by unrelated caregivers. In a later study, Margolin (1991) analyzed those 325 cases of abuse that were not committed by partners of the parent or child care […]

sexual abuse from authority figures The last category of extrafamilial abuse in Russell’s (1983) survey was abuse by authority figures. Overall, 6% of respondents in her study were abused by an authority figure. There is much confusion about what this category means, as exhibited by the conflicting findings in Table 6-2. For the reanalysis of […]

sexual abuse from romantic/sexual partners Another type of sexual abuse that is more widely discussed in the literature on rape than in child sexual abuse is that of abuse by a romantic or sexual partner. Yet, it remains a significant problem for adolescents, as 7% of all females in Russell’s (1983) study were victims of […]

child sexual abuse from friends The focus of child sexual abuse is seldom on abuse by friends, perhaps because of the issue of how to separate normal sexual play among peers and abuse. Even though abuse by friends was one of the less prevalent types of abuse in Russell’s (1983) study, more than 4% of […]

child sexual abuse from acquaintances Sexual abuse by acquaintances is the single largest category of child sexual abuse, accounting for 16% to 50% of all abuse, depending on how this category is defined. Although acquaintance rape is now the subject of intensive investigation, the same cannot be said of acquaintance child sexual abuse. Indeed, although […]

Child sexual abuse from strangers One of the most frightening of all types of abuse is that by strangers. The fear, of course, is that children will be accosted by strangers in the children’s neighborhoods and will be abused, raped, and sometimes even murdered. The public seems to be most concerned about this type of […]