Sexual Abuse in Nine North American Cultures is essential reading for advanced students and all who deal with child abuse, including those involved in therapy, child protection, and the medical, legal, and educational systems.

Sexual Abuse in Nine North American Cultures is essential reading for advanced students and all who deal with child abuse, including those involved in therapy, child protection, and the medical, legal, and educational systems.

A comprehensive guide to the identification, assessment, and treatment of child sexual abuse The field of child sexual abuse has experienced an explosion of research, literature, and enhanced treatment methods over the last thirty years. Representing the latest refinements of thought in this field, Handbook of Child Sexual Abuse: Identification, Assessment, and Treatment combines the most current research with a wealth of clinical experience. The contributing authors, many of whom are pioneers in their respective specialties, include researchers and clinicians, forensic interviewers and law enforcement professionals, caseworkers and victim advocates, all of whom do the work of helping children who have been sexually victimized. Offering a snapshot of the state of the field as it stands today, Handbook of Child Sexual Abuse explores a variety of issues related to child sexual abuse, from identification, assessment, and treatment methods to models for implementation and prevention, including: The impact of sexual abuse on the developing brain The potential implications of early sexual victimization Navigating the complexities of multidisciplinary teams Forensic interviewing and clinical assessment Treatment options for children who have traumagenic symptoms as a response to their sexual victimization Treating children with sexual behavior problems and adolescents who engage in illegal sexual behavior Secondary trauma and vicarious traumatization Cultural considerations and prevention efforts Edited by a leader in the field of child therapy, this important reference equips helping professionals on the front lines in the battle against child sexual abuse not merely with state-of-the-art knowledge but also with a renewed vision for the importance of their role in the shaping of our culture and the healing of victimized children.

Prevention of a chronic societal problem such as sexual victimization requires looking beyond individuals to the systemic factors that maintain the problem. Sexual Assault and Abuse addresses the need to change social and cultural beliefs and practices that permit the sexual victimization of women and children. Potential rapists and victims are viewed within the context of the social and cultural factors that shape sexual behavior. The book discusses rape prevention approaches ranging from changing individuals and groups to changing the social and cultural factors that permit and promote sexual victimization. Research in the social sciences, in education, and in the media documents the promise as well as the problems with efforts to change social and cultural beliefs and practices to create a sexually safe society. Sexual Assault and Abuse integrates recent advances in research on sexual assault and prevention into strategies to prevent sexual victimization, with a focus on the role of sociocultural factors. In Sexual Assault and Abuse, editor Carolyn F. Swift brings together authors who thoughtfully examine the perpetrators and victims of sexual assault/abuse in an effort to change or obliterate sociocultural factors which maintain or promote this behavior. Topics covered include: the sociocultural context of sexual assault/abuse the need to develop multiple-level prevention programs development of sexually abusive behavior in men and boys the relationship between pornography and sexual assault/abuse the need for culturally-sensitive prevention programs the significance of sexual revictimization in the lives of African American women an ecological approach to the prevention of sexual harassment utilization of social science research to develop public policy on pornography use of public information campaigns to prevent intrafamilial child sexual abuse within Hispanic families Sexual Assault and Abuse identifies sociocultural risks associated with sexual assault/abuse and explores ways to reduce these risks, from a prevention perspective, for diverse populations. Risks addressed include gender inequities, pornography, worksites hostile to women, previous victimization in African American females, sexist and racist beliefs, and media violence against women. Prevention programs range from interventions to stop the development of sexually abusive behavior in boys and men, through programs that take account of ethnic diversity in language, history, and culture, to those that promote empowerment of women. By addressing the environmental context in which sexual assault occurs, the authors in Sexual Assault and Abuse broaden their focus to incorporate both potential perpetrators and potential victims in an ecological perspective which permits new approaches to prevention. This book is of special interest and value to academics and practitioners of psychology, psychiatry, and social work, therapists and counselors, women’s studies professionals, sociologists, anthropologists, feminists, rape crisis center staff and volunteers, and battered women center staff and volunteers.

Designed for professionals in the field of child maltreatment, this authoritative book presents a compelling theoretical framework that guide's assessment of children and adolescents who have been sexually abused and their parents. The book is designed to make it easier for clinicians to select a number of measures or procedures across three dimensions that have considerable clinical relevance – attachment, dysregulations, and self-perception. Psychological Assessment of Sexually Abused Children and Their Families features in particular the assessment of sexually aggressive children and an extensive set of interview formats, checklists, and other forms that clinicians will find especially useful in evaluating children and their families. The book is also richly illustrated with case studies.

"Abusers of different cultures may not be assessed accurately because thay do not make eye contact or express negative emotions in groups or to therapists. Their cultural support systems have rarely been included in treatment sessions or aftercare plans. Lack of attention to cultural issues may foster ineffective treatment, putting some abusers and their communities at risk. Contributors discuss cultural issues regarding assessment and treatment of female sex abusers (as an unrecognized culture), Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Alaska Native groups, Asian Americans, and model approach undertaken with Maoris in New Zealand."--Publisher's description.

In a comprehensive examination of rape and its prosecution in British America between 1700 and 1820, Sharon Block exposes the dynamics of sexual power on which colonial and early republican Anglo-American society was based. Block analyzes the legal, social, and cultural implications of more than nine hundred documented incidents of sexual coercion and hundreds more extralegal commentaries found in almanacs, newspapers, broadsides, and other print and manuscript sources. Highlighting the gap between reports of coerced sex and incidents that were publicly classified as rape, Block demonstrates that public definitions of rape were based less on what actually happened than on who was involved. She challenges conventional narratives that claim sexual relations between white women and black men became racially charged only in the late nineteenth century. Her analysis extends racial ties to rape back into the colonial period and beyond the boundaries of the southern slave-labor system. Early Americans' treatment of rape, Block argues, both enacted and helped to sustain the social, racial, gender, and political hierarchies of a New World and a new nation.