4. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can result from
childhood abuse where there is the threat of death or
intense fear (acute or chronic)
Symptoms:
Intrusive thoughts and/or nightmares
Flashbacks
Exaggerated startle response
Avoidance
Anger
Depression
Co-morbidity (alcohol/drug dependency)
5. Abuse that is violent may be experienced as
life threatening
Chronic abuse may also lead to PTSD
Both acute and chronic abuse may be
accompanied by intense fear
Powerlessness and isolation are risk factors
for PTSD.
Perpetrators seek to isolate and control their
victims.
6. Guilt
Low-self-esteem
Self-blame
Impaired self-efficacy
Abuse dichotomy – “bad people suffer, I am
suffering therefore I must be bad”
7. Tactics of abusers include confusing the
victim, undermining his or her self-
confidence and decision making.
Tactics also include shifting responsibility
onto the victim
Control of the victim and transgression of
personal boundaries impacts on victim’s self-
efficacy.
Abuse may impair school performance and
overall cognitive development
9. Behaviour of the abuser and the sense/reality
of being trapped results in “learned
helplessness” or depression.
Fearfulness and hyper-vigilance results from
living in an abusive situation and results in
anxiety disorders.
10. Disengagement – spacing out
Detachment - numbing – of feelings
Observation – watching self rather than
participating
Amnesia
Dissociative Identity Disorder
11. Threatening situations which cannot be
escaped must be endured. In order the
endure what is intolerable individuals learn to
dissociate, those who do not dissociate tend
to develop PTSD.
In extreme cases the individual “splits” into
different personalities.
12. Sense of self as impaired leading to boundary
issues, identity problems and feelings of
personal emptiness.
13. One development task is the creation of
“personal integrity” or boundaries between
Self and Other. Perpetrators of abuse blur and
abuse those boundaries. The victim
experiences their personal integrity transient
and dependent on others.
In borderline personality disorder the
individual struggles to contain his or her
emotions, has a chaotic lifestyle and
unstable relationships.
14. Inability to differentiate the needs of the self
from the needs of others (co-dependency)
Attachment issues, such as a fear of intimate
and/or sexual relationships
Inability to trust
Inability to enjoy intimacy, including sexual
intimacy
15. Abuse damages the victim’s trust in others
Victims may avoid close relationships
Sexual abusers “condition” sexual behaviour
in victims by establishing a “token economy”
of rewards and threats.
Sexualised behaviour in childhood may lead
to promiscuity in later life.
16. Avoidance of conflict
Avoidance of sex and sexuality
Avoidance of time and place
Avoidance of triggers and associations (e.g.
films and TV)
The active maintenance of low self-esteem
17. Children avoid contact with the abuser and/or
the abuse environment.
Children avoid triggers and associations that
remind them of the abusive experience
Avoidance becomes an approach to
managing threatening situations and
negative emotions.
18. Age at onset of abuse
Intrusiveness of the abuse
Relationship with the abuser
Use of Violence (level of violence)
Female abuser
Reaction of others on disclosure
19. Child abuse trauma has the potential to
negatively shape a victim’s personality, his or
her development, relationships and ways of
being in the world .