The Management of a Young Child Following Sexual Abuse

Abstract

This paper describes an infant who was sexually abused. She was similar in many ways to other maltreated children but we wish to draw attention to problems of her management in later childhood. Behavioral difficulties arising from emotional deprivation are to be expected but treatment may be complicated because the knowledge that a child has been abused sexually can affect the feelings of substitute parents. The methods used to treat the child and to help the foster parents are presented in this paper.