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Representations of self in women sexually abused in childhood
C Classen1, N P Field, A Atkinson
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA 94305-5718, USA.
Objective:
This exploratory study examined the self representations of 27 women sexually abused in childhood and their association with symptomatology.
Method:
Twenty-seven self-identified female survivors of childhood sexual abuse completed the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40, Beck Depression Inventory, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and a measure designed to elicit subjects' self-generated descriptors of selves.
Results:
Discrepancies in views of current self when compared to ideal or future selves were positively correlated with all symptom measures. Discrepancies in representations of current self compared to views of who they were when they were with their perpetrator were negatively correlated with trait anxiety. Self integration, as defined in this study, was negatively correlated with symptoms.
Conclusions:
This study suggests that cognitive representations of self are an important indicator of adjustment in survivors of childhood sexual abuse.