Citation

Marshall WL, Serran GA, Cortoni FA. Sex. Abuse 2000; 12(1): 17-26.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10729956

Abstract

The present study examined the parent-child attachments, typical coping styles, and childhood sexual abuse among 30 child molesters, 24 nonsexual offenders, and 29 nonoffenders. The results indicated that all subjects reported greater security in their attachments to their mothers than to their fathers and the insecure patterns of childhood attachments were related to ineffective adult coping. The only difference observed in characteristic coping showed that child molesters were more likely to engage in emotion focused strategies. Child molesters reported having experienced high levels of childhood sexual abuse and these experiences appear to have been more distressing to them than to other subjects. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for theory and treatment.

Language: en