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Each year in the United States almost two million children are victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect (National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1988). The annual number of new cases of sexual abuse is estimated to be 150,000 to 200,000 every year (Finkelhor and Hotaling, 1984). Retrospective studies of community samples of randomly selected women demonstrated that 38%-45% of these subjects were sexually abused during childhood (Russell, 1983; Wyatt, ). The high incidence of sexual abuse in our children, and the frequent history of adults molested as children in adults with a wide variety of psychiatric disorders makes it imperative to understand the immediate and long-term sequelae of sexual victimization so that effective intervention strategies can be developed. Describing the similarities and contrasts between child victims and adult survivors of sexual abuse will provide a developmental perspective that might identify the ingredients of sex-abuse trauma and how these are processed by the victim during childhood, adolescence, and in adult life.
Fearfulness and anxiety-related symptoms have been frequently described as immediate and long-term symptoms in victims of sexual abuse (Kempe and Kempe, 1978; Lewis and Sarrell, 1969).