Children and Adolescents: Victims Who Become Perpetrators

The purpose of this journal.

This journal sets out to consider whenever being a victim of sexual abuse can be a significant factor for a perpetrators. It attempts to highlight factors in understanding the origins and development of sexually abusive behavior at an early age.

How this has developed.

The author has used his own working knowledge from a clinical background on sex offenders to contribute to this study. It has also conducted a joint research study, with two child sexual abuse teams at Great Ormond street hospital and the institute of child health.

The research includes use of real case as examples from child psycholotherapists during the research assessment.

The author used the findings from the research team who investigated sexual abusive behavior in boys aged ranging 11-15 years.

They carried out investigations on 86 cases which provided them detailed information on the mothers and boys and social relationships were also conducted.

The author stated that the majority of these cases were from white families of lower social economic status.

Forty Six cases were studied during duration of 12 weeks of an intensive assessment. These sessions were semi- structured interviews. They used this information and incorporated hypnosis's for future investigations.

Four groups of boys: The one group was boys who had sexually abused other children, who were also victims of sexual abuse themselves. Second was the boy's who had been sexually abused, but was not known to have abused others. Third group was the boys who sexually abused others but who was not known to have been sexually abused themselves. Lastly the fourth group of boys which used as a comparison group, boys who showed disturbing behaviors, but with no history of victimization or sexually abusive behavior.

The author used psychoanalytically research approach in understanding the development of sexually abusive behavior.

The author has made reference to using literature and using his own clinical experience as a base to begin his research.

What they found!

* Risk factors found. Discriminated victimized boys who had become abusers.

* Differences found between 2 groups of the victims and the abusers

* All boys had witnessed violence or had been physically abused. The author makes comments that violence exposes the child to stress, fear and helplessness. If experienced over a long period of time, the child can have personality development problems. The author references this from another author.

* All boys experienced disrupted care. Showing signs of attachment issues and feeling rejected. The author then referenced this argument, if not having a attachment during childhood, this will be taken to adulthood with having difficulty with socialization and relationships.

* All boys showed significant trauma but a handful showing signs of post traumatic stress disorder.

The Context of the paper.

* The text has been written for professionals who are working with children