The Effects of Incest on Female Adolescent Development

Sixty adolescent female victims of incest and their families were extensively evaluated and/or treated over a 3 year period of time. The adolescent developmental tasks of separation from the family and establishment of peer relationships, establishment of a positive sense of self, development of reality testing, establishment of heterosexual relationships, consolidation of body image, attainment of a sense of mastery over the environment, and reaffirmation of basic trust are all seriously compromised by the incest experience.

Clinicians have written about incest and incest participants since before the time of Freud. Initially Freud (1959) believed his female patients' reports of incest experiences until these reports seemed to be widespread and a common finding. These reports were then dismissed as fantasy and became part of the basis for his theory of infantile sexuality. Karl Abraham (1927) wrote of incest and remarked that this trauma could not be regarded as a cause of mental disease. The child was thought to desire unconsciously the sexual activity and became a willing if not initiating participant in the act.

Sloan and Karpinski (1942) reported five cases in their experience, concluding that incest led to severe repercussions for females and usually resulted in self-destructive activities. Bender and Blau (1937) reported on 16 children who had sexual experiences with adults and found these children to have experienced less trauma than expected. Bender remarked that these children had unusually charming and attractive personalities, made personal contacts easily, and seemed to need personal contact for their own happiness and contentment. Bender (1968) remarked on the disorganization of the families of these children and described the children as “emotionally deprived, affect hungry

Dr. O'Brien is a member of the division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1 Gustave L. Levy Place New York, N.Y. 10029.