FRI, Oct 8 \ 14.30-16.30 \ Victims of Sexual Abuse, I

094
SEXUALLY OFFENDED IN THE EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Manolis Nonas, Constantinos Stamatiou, Maria Sgouridou
University of Athens, Tzaneio General Hospital of Peraeus, Greece
sgoumary@yahoo.gr

Literature is often strickly related to the reality. In Europe, during the era of Realism, authors' efforts aimed specifically to transfer the data of real life in their books.
Till then, themes as ‘love', ‘woman' and ‘adventures' had the first place in most writers work.
But at the middle of 19th century and specially after the Industrial Revolution in Britain, enormous changes are coming up in the field of literature The ‘poverty', the ‘problems of every day life', the ‘dark side of life'. Children, and not only, tragic figures of this situation make their appearance in the literary scene. All these victims of sexual abuse represent some the of the most famous characters of the European creators.
In England, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Greece the problem was the same, but regarding the literature it came out in different ways.
The image of the sexually offended person, related with the life conditions in different parts of Europe, the customs and the whole culture of every country, presents many similarities but also much more differences in a comparative perspective.
Except this first part of comparison the whole work contains secondly a research for the registration of this particular subject in the modern literature compared with the classic one and thirdly statistics about the relation between the official case report and literary production about the sexually offended persons.

095
AGE AS A RISK FACTOR OF TRAUMA IN THE GREEK FEMALE POPULATION

Christina Antonopoulou & Nikoletta Skoufalou
Athens University, Greece & New School University, N.Y., USA
cantonop@cc.uoa.gr

The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency of trauma among Greek women, ages 20-55. Twenty six Greek females completed the TSI (John Briere), MDI (John Pierce), and DAPS (John Briere) questionnaires. A one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was computed to determine whether age is a risk factor in the occurrence of trauma. Significant results were found for many items of each questionnaire, suggesting that the older a woman is the more likely she has experienced a traumatic event, and has been affected by it. For example, item #5 of the DAPS “Someone threatening to injure you or to do something sexual to you against your will, although they didn't actually do anything to you, when you were afraid you would be hurt or killed?” was found to be significant (F=4,82 p<0,026) indicating that women 40 and up responded yes more often than women under 40. However, on the MDI women ages 30 to 40 scored higher, depicting dissociative qualities which lead us to assume that traumatic events occurred more recently in these women. Furthermore, we can infer that women in their 40's and up continue to experience traumatic events, however have developed ways to cope “learned helplessness” (Seligman M., 1995) with these negative experiences. Perhaps this is why women 40 and up show symptoms of depression and anxiety more often, while women in their 30's display more often signs of acute traumatic dissociative qualities. Supporting our hypothesis are items on the MDI such as item #2 “Your body feeling like it was somebody else's” (F=3,36 p<0,05) which was responded to most often by women in their 30's.

096
THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTION IN A SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILD: THE EFFECT OF MILIEU THERAPY APPROACH IN A CHILD PSYCHIATRY INPATIENT UNIT

Maria Belivanaki, Niki Kanari, John Tsiantis
Athens University Medical School, “Aghia Sophia” Children's Hospital, Athens, Greece
itsianti@cc.uoa.gr

It has been well documented that children who suffered sexual abuse invariably demonstrate increased levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression, anxiety and sexual and behavior problems. These manifestations may persist for months or even years although there is evident to suggest that the traumatic experience itself may not be sufficient to elicit long-lasting distress. Indeed, some children appear to be resilient to some extent following a variety of traumatic events. It has been estimated that the severity of the stress reactions related to trauma may be a function of a complex interplay of the type of experience, the attachment status of the child, certain developmental influences and the quality of family relationships.
This presentation concerns the impatient milieu therapy intervention in an 11-year old sexually abused boy. The main scope of the therapeutic intervention was to permit the child to express and repeat in a therapeutic and thus controlled setting his feelings, thoughts, fantasies and compulsions related to trauma. The re-experience of the affective, cognitive and behavior consequences of the traumatic event under therapeutic conditions and the work via the therapeutic team eventually led to the establishment of a new environment that contained the child.
The active ingredients of the intervention as well as its effect on the family setting is discussed.

097
SEXUAL ABUSE AND DRUG ADDICTION : A CASE STUDY

Zafiria Detoraki, Domna Tsaklakidou, Penny Milioti, Effie Makri, Vallia Kokkota.
A' Methadone Substitution Unit, Organisation Against Drugs (OKANA), Athens, Greece

The aims of the presentation of the case study are the following:
A) To point out the relation between sexual abuse and drug addiction.
B) To show how such a traumatic experience as sexual abuse can affect the self-esteem and the self-concept and can lead to self-destructive drug use.
C) To present the person-centered therapeutic process and how it was applied from the first day of the patient's admission in the Substitution Unit up to the final stage of social rehabilitation.
D) To describe the obstacles and the difficulties that the therapist had to deal with, during the therapeutic process.
E) Finally, information on the present state of the client will be provided.
With the presentation of the case study, we would like to point out the natural tendency of each human being that plays a role of necessity in developing all the psychological and physical functions, in order to reach “autonomy”, “self-actualization” and “positive self-regard”. The therapeutic relation that was developed, helped our client to mature, to overcome the obstacles of the traumatic experience and of the drug addiction and to start a new journey towards the future, after attending the methadone substitution program and the program of social rehabilitation.

098
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOSOCIAL RISK FACTORS IN SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILDREN

Anastasia Stathopoulou, Maria Eliopoulou, Aggeliki Katrivanou, Ioannis Tsoussis, Sofia Vassiliadou, Stavroula Beratis
Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Patras, 265 04 Rion-Patras, Greece
psychdpt@med.upatras.gr

Sexual abuse in childhood is associated with an increased risk for psychopathology, comorbidity, severe functional impairment and more adverse course of the disorders. Parental psychopathology and adversities in family and environment are also often evident. The aim of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of the children who are sexually abused and their families and to examine the possible contributory role of the psychosocial risk factors in comorbidity, severity of functional impairment and course of the psychopathology.
We studied twenty-one children and adolescents, aged 5-16, who have been sexually abused and treated at the Pediatric and Child Psychiatry of University Hospital of Patras. All children were studied on measures of demographics, psycho¬pathology, global functioning, family functioning and life events. Diagnoses were made according to DSM-IV.
The majority of sexually abused children were girls (77%), younger than 6 years old (48%). Most perpetrators were members of the family (father: 43%, family member: 38%). Post-traumatic stress disorder (59%), depressive disorder (41%), specific phobias (29%) and suicide attempts (19%) were the most common disorders. Forty-three percent of children had parents with at least one psychiatric disorder. Comorbidity and impairment in functioning were common.
Children and adolescents with sexual abuse are at heightened risk for significant psychiatric morbidity, functional impairment as well as the presence of multiple stressors. These findings suggest that sexually abused children warrant detailed psychosocial and preventive intervention by Mental Health Specialties.