The Long Shadow of Sexual Abuse: Developmental Effects across the Life Cycle - Tapa dura

W.B. Yeats once wrote, 'The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.' We wish this were so. Those who perpetrate child sexual abuse-whether the lonesome and forlorn or the predatory-are the morbid and timeless contaminants of the beauty and innocence we so cherish in our children. Dr. Calvin Colarusso, the eminent psychoanalyst and pioneer in adult development, brings a passion, depth, and clarity to one of the great scourges of our era, the developmental sequelae of child sexual abuse. -- Reid Meloy, PhD, ABPP, Forensic Psychologist, co-editor, International Handbook of Threat Assessment; University of California, San Diego Clinical material, a developmental approach, and clearly articulated social need are integrated in this brave and disciplined work on the devastating, life-long effects of chronic childhood and adolescent sexual abuse and rape. An invaluable, if frightening contribution for which clinicians, theoreticians, social scientists, and the legal profession may well be grateful. -- Peter Blos, Jr., MD, Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute; University of Michigan Medical Center (retired) Widely respected for his seminal contributions to the understanding of adult psychological development, Calvin Colarusso turns his attention here to the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse. With the help of detailed, poignant, and often heart-breaking clinical material, he illustrates how normal developmental processes throughout the life span are compromised as a result of such trauma. Colarusso's orientation is unabashedly clinical and his aim is not only to lay bare the harmful consequences of abuse but also to point out that resilience, self-reliance, and tenacious pursuit of self-knowledge can evolve from it. His book is replete with clinical wisdom, evidence of caring devotion to suffering individuals, and a thoroughly humane attitude! -- Salman Akhtar, MD, is professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Calvin Colarusso, the renowned clinician and scholar, has again demonstrated his remarkable command of the complex nuances of human development and behavior. In this exceptional and important book, he addresses the sensitive and profound topic of chronic child sexual abuse, and its effects on the victims throughout their lives. His erudition and insights are palpable as usual, but it is his compassion and humanity emanating from his writing and from his heart which make this book indispensable for those who work with the victims as children or adults and for those who are involved in justice or social policy. -- Saul Levine, MD, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of California at San Diego; Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego

The Long Shadow of Sexual Abuse: Developmental Effects across the Life Cycle has one simple purpose-to describe the profound interferences with normal developmental processes that occur in every subsequent developmental phase throughout life as the result of chronic child sexual abuse. Through the presentation of detailed case histories of individuals ranging in age from five to the early sixties, Colarusso convincingly demonstrates that the effects are life long. Sections on normal development for childhood, adolescence, young, and middle adulthood are followed by case histories, arranged chronologically according to the age of the victims at the time they were evaluated. Then the effects of the sexual abuse are traced through subsequent developmental phases to the chronological present. Colarusso illuminates how the passage of time actually increases the pathological effects of chronic child sexual abuse due to interferences with the developmental tasks of adolescence and adulthood.