Psychological intervention with adults sexually abused as children: A systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: Adult victims of child sexual abuse are more vulnerable to psychological symptoms. The objectives of this review are to describe and critically examine papers published in the last decade concerning psychological intervention with adult victims of childhood sexual abuse and to bring these studies to the Spanish-speaking population. Methods: The authors reviewed articles from January 2000 to June 2010 addressing the topic above. Literature was gathered from databases including Medline, Scopus and PsycINFO using the following terms: (sexual abuse OR child sexual abuse) AND (psychological treatment OR psychological intervention). Results: One hundred and one potential articles were identified and 19 studies were finally included. The strong contribution of North America and Canada to the study of psychological interventions with sexually abused victims is clear. Psychological treatments are diverse and mainly come from cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic perspectives, focused on victims’ general distress. Conclusions: No theoretical approach is better than other to treat sexual abuse symptoms. The best therapy might be one that takes into account that sexual abuse is an experience, not a specific syndrome