The following hour you attend a family therapy meeting. The parents and their three children are waiting quietly as you enter the room. You observe that the parents are a little anxious, worried and a bit nervous. The youngest sibling is a three year old female, the second child is a seven year old male and the oldest is a 15 year old female. You discover that the parent's are concerned about their son. His boy scout leader had recently be

In order to foster a treatment to aid those suffering any maladaptive behavior elicited from these experiences, a number of variables need to be considered. Finkelhor states, "Sexual abuse, like many other problems of childhood, does not occur in a vacuum. A variety of other individual, family and community problems tend to accompany sexual abuse" (Finkelhor 1995, p.1421). The system of family communication, socio-economic status and marital discord are just a few external problems that can contribute to and magnify the effect of the actual act of sexual abuse.

It has been proven that therapeutic intervention facilitates children's recovery (Alexander 1989). Thus far, therapy to treat such a phenomenon has usually been through group therapy, yet a wide range of other therapies have been utilized as well. Individual therapy which focuses on the victim, family therapy which centers around helping family members cope and aid in support of the victim and play therapy for those victims that are too young to express themselves verbally, are just a few. However, the only consensus concerning which treatment works best is that any form of therapy is better than no therapy at all. No therapist can predict the exact experiences encountered by each individual victim of sexual abuse. Given such a wide range of variables that are correlated with sexual abuse and the lack of clear support for one treatment over another, it appears to be that no specific treatment can be labeled better than any other. At this point in time, a multimodal approach, that allows the therapist to exercise their clinical judgement and individualize treatment for each client would be the most effective form of therapy for sexual child abuse.

Whether the parents are capable and willing to contribute to the therapeutic process can also be a major obstacle. A lot of times the parents may be in denial. Take the scenario given in the introduction for example. The client's mother did not believe her daughter when she disclosed the incestuous relationship the father had instigated. The victim already feels guilty and fearful from the violation of control over her own body by one parent whom she is supposed to trust and be protected by. When the second person who is supposed to protect her fails to do so the child is left feeling completely isolated and alone. Parental support is extremely important to the therapeutic process. At the very least some sort of positive relationships need to be implemented and maintained with the victim in order to model what friendships and eventually romantic and healthy relationships entail.

en arrested for molesting two members of the squad. When the concerned parents talked about the incident with their son, he revealed that he too had been a victim as well. The young boy sat upright paying attention to what was said. He spoke clearly, but his tone and hesitation indicated confusion. The incident had occurred only once and took place while on a camping trip four months ago. The family in general was very supportive and wanted to ensure that their son "knew" he did nothing to evoke such behavior.

Even though a therapist may pull resources and various techniques from multiple orientations, all clients will be treated with some common goals. 1) The clarification of erroneous beliefs that might lead to negative attributions about the self or others, as well as decreasing any sense of guilt and isolation through reassurance or exposure to other victims (Finkelhor 1995). 2) Learning to express emotions properly, problem solving and coping skills. "It's helpful for children to see the connection between their abuse and current distress because it provides a framework for understan

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