Typologies of family functioning associated with the occurence of childhood sexual abuse

Researchers examining the effects of childhood sexual abuse have, with increasing frequency, begun to investigate the role which the childhood family environment plays in facilitating the occurrence and mediating the impact of sexual abuse. Although plagued with numerous methodological and conceptual limitations, a considerable literature has emerged around the presumed link among various characteristics of family functioning and the sexual abuse of children. The present investigation examined the relationship between the occurrence of sexual abuse and various parameters of family functioning while seeking to address many of the criticisms leveled at the existing literature. To accomplish this, family functioning, demographic, and abuse characteristic data were collected on 111 women comprising four groups. These groups included: 1) abused women in treatment at the time of testing; 2) abused women not in treatment; 3) non-abused women in treatment; and 4) non-abused women who were not in treatment. Results indicate that, utilizing the Family Functioning Scale (Bloom, 1985/Bloom & Lipetz, 1987), five characteristics of family functioning reliably discriminated abusive from non-abusive families. These were emotional expressiveness, cohesion, intellectual-cultural orientation, activities-recreational orientation, and religiosity. Abusive families scored lower on each of these dimensions than did non-abusive families. Further investigation revealed that distinct clusters of family types could be produced using these five variables and that these clusters had distinct demographic and abuse characteristics associated with them.