Sibling Child Sexual Abuse Research Review and Clinical Implications

SUMMARY

Although sex play is a part of normal childhood development, some sexual activity may be coerced or forced and may have negative long-term consequences and, thus, be considered abusive. However, childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by siblings, cousins, or peers receives relatively little attention from either researchers or practitioners. In the present article, the literature on sibling child sexual abuse is critically reviewed, and particular attention is focused on defining sibling sexual abuse, and determining its scope and effects. Clinical Implications are derived as well. Although the article focuses on sibling sexual abuse, the concepts considered here also apply to other forms of same-age (or near same-age) child sexual relationships.     

Current Treatment Strategies for Sexually Abused Children

SUMMARY

Given the disturbingly high prevalence of child sexual abuse, the expertise of medical and mental health professionals in treating child sexual abuse victims is essential. Relevant issues in treating these children include the mindfulness of developmental considerations, incorporation of a multi-modal therapeutic evaluation approach, clarification of treatment goals, appropriate use of and integration of various treatment modalities, and effective treatment termination. This article provides an introduction aid overview of treatment of sexually abused children of all ages, from preschoolers to adolescents, with special emphasis on the importance of developmentally linked evaluation and treatment strategies. Treatment is discussed in terms of goals, stages from evaluation to termination, and formats and modalities including individual psychotherapy, family psychotherapy, group psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, to provide a comprehensive overview of current treatment strategies for sexually abused children.     

Children First

Abstract

Investigations and prosecutions involving murdered and physically abused children are among the most serious and most complex faced by law enforcement professionals. These cases are complicated on legal, factual, medical, and scientific levels. Oftentimes, the evidence against the suspected perpetrator is solely circumstantial. Many of the problems inherent in these investigations can be overcome by prioritizing these cases. The local prosecutor's office can take the lead in ensuring justice by direct participation in the investigative phase and by ensuring continuity in the prosecution. In this article, I outline a model to ensure that this happens.     

Cumulative Contribution of Child Maltreatment to Emotional Experience and Regulatory Intent in Intimate Adult Interactions

This study examined the link between experiencing multiple types of child maltreatment and intentions to control emotion during charged discussions with intimate partners in adulthood, and whether the link is mediated by intensity of negative emotions. Using video recall, 97 couples rated their levels of emotions and intentions to control emotion during charged discussions with partners. Number of types of child maltreatment reported was linked with effort to control emotion, and the relationship was partially mediated by intensity of participants’ feelings of hostility. For men, the link was also partially mediated by self-reported sadness and anxiety. Findings underscore the importance of attending to abuse survivors’ experiences of and attempts to manage intense emotions in treatment, particularly in couples therapy.     

Effects of work–family culture on employee well-being: Exploring moderator effects in a longitudinal sample

This present panel study had three aims: (1) to shed new light on the work–family culture (WFC)–well-being (work–family conflict, work engagement, job exhaustion) linkage by investigating lagged associations between the phenomena; (2) to consider the multidimensional nature of WFC by specifying whether its lagged effects on well-being would vary by its dimensions; and (3) to explore whether the positive aspects of WFC would prevent its negative ones from spilling over into employee well-being. The study was based on a 2-year longitudinal sample (N = 409) gathered among Finnish health care workers. The results showed that WFC was a bidimensional construct containing both negative (work–family barriers) and positive (work–family support) facets. Only its positive facets (work–family support) showed a lagged negative effect on the outcomes studied (work–family conflict). No signs of moderator effects were observed.     

Switching on and off … : Does smartphone use obstruct the possibility to engage in recovery activities?

This study examines the impact of work-related smartphone use on daily recovery from work-related efforts. The literature shows that work–home interference (WHI) is an important inhibitor of the recovery process. We propose that the extensive use of smartphones with its implicit request of 24/7 availability inhibits the process of engaging in activities that are required for daily recovery. A total of 80 employees (40 smartphone users, 40 controls) completed a 6-day diary questionnaire over a time period of 2 weeks. Contrary to our hypothesis, smartphone users did not experience more overall WHI than nonusers. Furthermore, four activities aimed at recovery were examined. We predicted that daily WHI would increase employees’ engagement in recovery activities, but only if they did not use a smartphone. Results showed that, for the control group, WHI was positively related to psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control activities, whereas smartphone users facing high WHI did not succeed in engaging in these recovery activities. This implies that being connected to work in the evening hours through smartphones has consequences for the extent to which employees succeed in undertaking recovery activities.     

Towards a multilevel approach of employee well-being

In this commentary, I respond to Ilies, Aw & Pluut’s (Intraindividual models of employee well-being: What have we learned and where do we go from here?, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, in press) call for a theory that distinguishes between traits and states of employee well-being. I use Job Demands–Resources theory to illustrate how we may integrate within- and between-person approaches and findings to design an overall multilevel model of employee well-being. My perspective builds on Ilies et al. and recent findings of research combining relatively stable “traits” with fluctuating states of employee well-being. My goals with this commentary are three-fold: (1) give more insight into possible differences between variables at different levels of analysis; (2) use research to show how trait and state levels of (predictors of) employee well-being may interact; (3) propose a multilevel model that may stimulate future research on the topic.     

There is more than obeying display rules: Service employees’ motives for emotion regulation in customer interactions

Although research has focused on how service employees regulate their emotions, few studies have explored why they do so. In this article, we first described which kinds of motives for emotion regulation exist in customer interactions. Second, we investigated how the motives are related to four emotion regulation strategies. The application of an explorative approach resulted in a list of 10 motives, which could be classified into the three motive categories: pleasure, prevention, and instrumental. Hierarchical linear modelling of 421 reported service interactions from a diary study revealed that the motive categories were differently related to the emotion regulation strategies. Motives of the instrumental category were only significantly positively related to surface acting. Motives of the pleasure category were positively related to deep acting and automatic regulation as well as negatively related to surface acting and emotional deviance. Motives of the prevention category were positively related to deep acting, surface acting, and emotional deviance as well as negatively related to automatic regulation. These results can be used by organizations not only to enhance the motivation of employees towards emotion regulation, but also towards more authentic emotional expressions.     

Heroic or hubristic? A componential approach to the relationship between perceived transformational leadership and leader–member exchanges

Using an interpersonal approach to self-perceptions, we broke down leaders’ self-perceptions of their transformational leadership behaviour into three components: a target effect (i.e., how leaders are perceived by followers), a perceiver effect (i.e., how leaders perceive followers), and a self-enhancement effect (i.e., idiosyncratic positivity bias in how leaders perceive themselves), and then examined the relationships between these components and the quality of exchanges between leaders and followers (LMX). In a survey study among 60 leaders with 286 followers, we found the target effect in leaders’ self-perceptions of their transformational leadership to be positively related to the quality of LMX, whereas the perceiver effect and self-enhancement effects were negatively associated with LMX. Follower extraversion intensified the positive role of the target effect and the negative role of the self-enhancement effect in the leader–follower exchanges.     

Turning towards a bio-psycho-social way of thinking

This paper considers the impact being made on child and adolescent mental health services by the ‘neuroscience revolution’. It outlines some of the important developments that form part of that revolution and considers some of the challenges they present to the thinking of psychoanalytic child psychotherapists within the British Object Relations tradition. After considering a case example and Guntrip's formulation of some core principles of that tradition, it argues that its psycho-social thinking now needs to be stretched so as to become bio-psychosocial.