title: Child sexual abuse survivors with dissociative amnesia: what's the difference?
abstract: Although the issue of dissociative amnesia in adult survivors of child sexual abuse has been contentious, many research studies have shown that there is a subset of child sexual abuse survivors who have forgotten their abuse and later remembered it. Child sexual abuse survivors with dissociative amnesia histories have different formative and therapeutic issues than survivors of child sexual abuse who have had continuous memory of their abuse. This article first discusses those differences in terms of the moderating risk factors for developing dissociative amnesia (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender, etc.) and then mediating risk factors (e.g., social support, trait dissociativity, etc.). The differences between the two types of survivors are then explored in terms of treatment issues.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, Buffalo Center for Social Research, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo, New York 14214-8004, USA. mwolf3@buffalo.edu
authors.forename: Molly R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.forename: Thomas H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Nochajski
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000647:Amnesia / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012737:Sex Factors; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D017741:Survivors / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology*; D013997:Time Factors