title: Breaking secrecy. Adult survivors disclose to their families.
abstract: With families in which incest has occurred, secrecy is the organizing principle of all family relationships. Both the testimony of survivors and the clinical literature emphasize the central role of the incest secret. Children who have been sexually abused by adults outside the family also frequently keep this secret as a result of intimidation or shame. Secrecy compounds the trauma of the sexual abuse itself by isolating the victim from others, so that her perceptions can not be validated. Often, the victim comes to doubt her own experience of reality, which is at odds with the family's version of the truth. Many, if not most, victims of child sexual abuse reach adult life still preserving the rule of secrecy.
authors.affiliation: Women's Mental Health Collective, Somerville, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schatzow
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Herman
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology*; D005190:Family; D005196:Family Therapy / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D007179:Incest; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D012650:Self Disclosure; D014342:Truth Disclosure